Tag Archives: December

The Mission: Accomplished Monthly Review of December 2024

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In my introduction to the 2024 edition of my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, I wondered if it would be “third time lucky” — having failed to complete the Challenge in 2022 and 2023, could I manage it in 2024? And the answer is: yes. Hurrah! Although it’s not really “luck”, but a mixture of dedication (sticking at it all year), tweaking (making changes year-on-year to keep the task challenging but make it achievable), and working out the best way to approach it (learning what didn’t work on my first two goes so I could avoid those mistakes).

I’ve felt a greater sense of achievement in completing the Challenge this year than I have for years. Partly that’s because I failed the last two years, so no achievement-feeling there; but also, the previous version of the Challenge had become de rigueur. Some years I completed it as early as May (four times out of fifteen, to be precise, so almost a third of the times I did it). Even if I didn’t manage that, completing it hadn’t been a problem since 2012 (which was the last time I failed — every success since then happened no later than November). It had become a sprint to the finish line, which wasn’t really what I wanted it to be — it was supposed to be a challenge, and it was supposed to take all year. That’s more or less why I decided to mix it up, and the fact I failed the new-style Challenge on my first two attempts shows I’d succeeded in making it trickier for myself. So, to manage it on my third go… I think it’s justified to feel a sense of achievement. Sure, it’s still only “watching films” — arguably one of the easiest, most passive hobbies you can have — but it’s something.

Anyway, there’ll be more reflection on the Challenge in its entirety in the days to come, when I trot out my usual array of year-end retrospectives. For now, let’s zoom in on the final stretch…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#94 Look Back (2024) — Failure #12
#95 Hotel Rwanda (2004) — WDYMYHS #10
#96 The Holdovers (2023) — New Film #12
#97 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) — WDYMYHS #11
#98 Le Trou (1960) — Blindspot #12
#99 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) — WDYMYHS #12
#100 Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) — Rewatch #12


  • I watched 14 feature films I’d never seen before in December.
  • That means I’ve achieved at least 10 first-watches in every month of 2024 — the first whole calendar year I’ve managed that since 2020!
  • And 14 equals April for the most first-watches in a single month of 2024.
  • I haven’t been mentioning those kinds of stats much this year, because most months have been unremarkable. December’s done alright, though: it’s beaten the rolling average of the last 12 months (10.9); beaten the average for 2024 to date (previously 10.6, now 10.9 too, natch); and beaten the average for all Decembers (previously 11.6, now 11.8).
  • Back to my 100 Films in a Year Challenge: six of those first-watches counted towards my Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • Normally I’d count the first 2024 film of a month as the New Film, because it’s a ‘higher’ category; and normally I’d be only too happy to keep the Failures slot open a little longer, because there’s always so many of them. But there are so many 2024 releases I’ve missed, it felt more productive to try to force myself to watch another one of them rather than another Failure.
  • This is the first time I’ve completed Blindspot in this new era — I was one shy in 2022 and three short in 2023. (I didn’t complete WDYMYHS in 2022 either, but did in 2023.)
  • I watched all six Wallace & Gromit films this month, but only one of them counted towards my Challenge. It was nearly none at all, but I didn’t get in the other rewatch I had planned, so Curse of the Were-Rabbit snagged that space. Shorts don’t currently count anyway (maybe one day), but Vengeance Most Fowl could’ve been here as a New Film, if there’d been any slots left.
  • This month’s concluding Blindspot film was French prison break thriller Le Trou.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS films represented a whole quarter of the list. They were genocide drama Hotel Rwanda, racism drama To Kill a Mockingbird, and superhero adventure Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Bit of a change of tone at the end there.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Holdovers and Look Back.



The 115th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
As I get started on my yearly review posts, I’m endeavouring to give everything a final score (for the stats) and starting to think about my top ten list. There are a few films this month that are in contention for the latter, and I’m still considering giving 5s for the former. One that feels like a lock for the list but maybe not for a 5 (because I enjoyed it a heck of a lot, but is it a 5-star film? Not sure yet) was The Good, the Bad, the Weird — recently released on 4K by Arrow, but I watched my old Blu-ray copy to decide if I wanted to buy that new version. Suffice to say, I did.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I’m beginning to suspect 2024’s average score might be a strong one (but, hey, you never know) because this was another month with no truly bad films (a sentence I feel I’ve written a lot this year). That said, Hotel Rwanda struck me as a somewhat old-fashioned movie-ised treatment of a very real tragedy, which is a less than ideal reaction to something that should really be powerful.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Wordpress seem to have revised their stats presentation, making this harder to work out (they no longer highlight it for me — I have to look up every post one by one), which is a shame and makes me disinclined to continue this next year. But, for now, I can say the most-viewed post during December was the November monthly review — the fifth time the previous month’s review has won this award in 2024. It only beat the Failures by one hit, though.(For what its worth: of the other seven winners, it was the previous month’s failures twice, and a film review the other five times.)



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


It’s 2025 — a quarter of the way through the century! Jesus. Everything just conspires to make you feel old nowadays, doesn’t it?

As ever, before I get into the swing of the new year, I’ll be spending a good few posts looking back at the old one. After another mostly-quiet year here on 100 Films, it’s going to be a busy week (give or take).

December’s Failures

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I habitually begin this column with the theatrical releases I’ve missed in the past month, but this time the true biggest failures are of a more personal nature: all the films I should have watched to complete my 100 Films in a Year Challenge. Those were, in alphabetical order, A Brighter Summer Day, Pierrot le Fou, Shoah, and, er, any five gialli. The monthly “failures” category of my 100 Films Challenge will continue in 2024, so now those failures from last year have the possibility of helping me complete next year by being the “failure” I watch in January. It’s almost beautiful… though, to be honest, I suspect I’m more likely to watch one of the following…

Well, probably not any of this first batch either, seeing as many of them are still in cinemas and the others won’t hit disc or streaming for a while. The one that nearly tempted me out of the house this month was Godzilla Minus One — I was interested anyway, but then the glowing reviews sealed the deal. Unfortunately, its limited release coincided with a busy weekend of pre-Christmas family stuff and then a busy week of pre-Christmas work stuff, so I just didn’t have the opportunity. If it weren’t such a limited release, maybe it would still be showing and I could go in January; but it was limited, it isn’t still showing, and now I’ll have to wait for a disc release.

Also on the big screen… Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel Wonka — the first review I saw called it charmless, the second thought it was a magical delight, and now I don’t know what to think (I could look up the consensus, of course, but where’s the fun in that). Yet another end for one version or another of the DC cinematic universe in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom — I rather enjoyed the first one, so remain cautiously optimistic for the sequel. Talking of final (again) films, there was also Hayao Miyazaki’s latest last movie, The Boy and the Heron. Then there’s the latest from Michael Mann, Ferrari, and from Taika Waititi, Next Goal Wins. Closing things out, part two of French swashbuckling adaptation The Three Musketeers: Milady, which I’m hoping they’ll do a two-film 4K release when it reaches disc, as they skipped 4K for part one outside of France. Oh, and rom-com Anyone But You, which I might watch one day if it garners a good rep.

The concept of major end-of-year releases extended to the streamers, too. Netflix led with Zack Snyder’s latest, a rejected Star Wars pitch turned into an attempt to launch a standalone universe, Rebel Moon — or, rather, Rebel Moon: Part One, as apparently it was just too big to be contained to a single film. Or perhaps that should be Rebel Moon: Part One – The Neutered First Cut, as apparently this is a PG-13-friendly version ahead of an R-rated director’s cut due… in the future. This cynical viewership-grabbing idea (because why not just go straight to the uncut version?) seems to have backfired, with the film receiving poor reviews from all but the die-hard Snyder fans. It still sits on my watchlist, but then what doesn’t?

Trying to cover all bases, Netflix also released Bradley Cooper’s latest shot at an Oscar, Maestro; starry apocalyptic drama Leave the World Behind; and some family-friendly fare in the shape of belated sequel Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. Amazon’s offering was comparatively paltry. Well, there was an Eddie Murphy Christmas comedy that I didn’t even bother to note down the title of, so little am I likely to watch it. Elsewise, there was odd-looking animation Merry Little Batman. Its visual style put me off, but then I thought I’d watch it anyway as it’s just a short, but it turned out to be a full-length feature, and now… well, now it’s January. Who wants to watch a Christmas film in January?

Talking of Christmas films, the other streamers were at it too: Disney+ served up kid-friendly heist comedy The Naughty Nine alongside aviation-themed “Christmas miracle”-style short The Shepherd; and Sky boasted as Originals the latest Richard Curtis effort, Genie, alongside John Woo’s much-anticipated Silent Night. They also had the UK debut of May December, but I don’t think that’s very Christmassy. Nor was MUBI’s How to Have Sex, or Apple TV+’s action-comedy The Family Plan. The latter is a Mark Wahlberg vehicle, so I’m prepared for it to be weak, but the trailer amused me nonetheless. As for more reliable action stars, Disney+ also debuted Timeless Heroes: Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford, a feature-length documentary directed by DVD special features producer extraordinaire Laurent Bouzereau (but sadly not included on the latest Indiana Jones disc release), which is billed as follows: “From his humble beginnings as TV bit-player to his era-defining turn as a blockbuster action movie star and onto his more introspective roles that followed, this new documentary tracks the storied career of Harrison Ford.” Ford’s great and Bouzereau’s work is typically fab, so that’s gotta be worth a look, right?

In terms of films making their streaming debut, Sky are back to dominance, with a December that also featured everything from hit blockbusters Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Super Mario Bros Movie to flop blockbuster Shazam! Fury of the Gods; British flicks from grey-pound plays Allelujah and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry to action-comedy Polite Society; plus foreign-language action in Sisu and The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan. The best the others could offer were warmed-over releases like the Extended Version of Spider-Man: No Way Home on Netflix (the never-released-on-disc cut with 12 minutes of extra stuff). As always, there was plenty of back catalogue stuff to fill out my watchlists, but as they all tend to come and go, and jump about from one service to the other now and then, I won’t be listing them all.

Instead, let’s jump on to the never-ending drain on my finances: disc purchases! (Ah, I love ’em really, otherwise I wouldn’t do it.) It’s a shorter list than normal this month, for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of exciting titles. For example, there’s The Warriors on 4K from Arrow — a release I’ve been hoping for for years, although was slightly less keen on after Australia’s Imprint put the film out a while back in a very good 1080p set. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), Arrow’s and Imprint’s releases have completely different special features, so I’ll be keeping both sets. Another one I’d been waiting for was The Exorcist — not in desperation for any kind of decent release, but because they’ve been putting out multiple different configurations of its 4K discs over the past couple of months, and in December they finally released the one I wanted. Finally on 4K, I updated and/or completed my Indiana Jones, Guillermo del Toro, and Christopher Nolan collections with, respectively, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, and Oppenheimer.

Regular Blu-ray was a tale of two labels, with the latest releases from Eureka, HK gambling thriller Casino Raiders and samurai epic The Fall of Ako Castle; and the almost-latest-but-not-quite releases from Radiance (their actual December releases are currently somewhere in the postal system, having only dispatched to me this week), including French “noirish drama” Le combat dans l’ile, Umberto Lenzi’s poliziottesco Gang War in Milan, and a box set of Polish sci-fi / horror / “satirical, surrealistic apocalypse” fantasies directed by Piotr Szulkin, The End of Civilization. It sounds like the kind of stuff I have no idea if I’ll actually like or not, but it’s definitely worth a go (just don’t ask how much I spend on stuff that seems “worth a go”…)

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

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Happy New Year, dear readers!

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

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



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

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


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



The 103rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

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

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

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


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

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

December’s Failures

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13 years ago, I went to see Avatar on opening day, because it was the only chance I’d get over the Christmas period. This year, with long-delayed sequel Avatar: The Way of Water releasing at the same time, I… didn’t do the same thing. But it’s been a massive hit (even without my one ticket purchase? Shocking!), which means it’s still regularly playing, so I might catch it this week.

It’s fair to say there’s been nothing else quite so notable on the theatrical release slate, partly because everything cleared out of Avatar‘s way. The parting shot from the rest of cinema at the start of the month was Santa-based actioner Violent Night, which sounds fun in concept but I heard was disappointing in execution. I guess I’ll try to remember to catch it on streaming next December. Otherwise, it was mostly small independent-type titles or limited-release Netflix flicks. Either way, not much of that plays around me (as ever, by “around me” I mean “not at the cinema that’s a five-minutes drive away”. If I were prepared to travel 30–60 minutes (not that far, in the grand scheme of things), I could choose to see more of this stuff. But as getting off my arse to go to that five-minutes-away cinema is hard enough, I’m hardly likely to trek further afield.

Of course, nowadays there’s less need to, with stuff making it to streaming quicker than ever. Or even to TV, with latest Bond flick No Time to Die receiving its UK TV premiere yesterday, just 15 months after its theatrical release. Remember when we had to wait three to five years for that kind of thing? And it’s not just shorter windows, what with streamers producing their own high-profile content. There were more big titles premiering on Netflix this month than at cinemas. Chief among them, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (to give it its full, unwieldy, unnecessary title). I’m very much looking forward to it — so much so that I didn’t watch it, because I had a rotten cold over Christmas and knew I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it properly. Another one to slot in this week, then.

While that ended up dominating the conversation (and Netflix’s viewing chart), in December they also brought us Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, a racy (read: sex-filled) new adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Scandi monster movie Troll, computer-animated festive musical Scrooge: A Christmas Carol with a starry British voice cast (Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Jonathan Pryce), and The Big 4, a new one from the director of Headshot and The Night Comes for Us, Timo Tjahjanto, which I hear has suitably extravagant action scenes. As if that wasn’t enough, I also spotted 7 Women and a Murder, an Italian comedy mystery about seven women trapped in a mansion solving a murder, making its international debut as a “Netflix Original” a year after being released in its native Italy. I guess they bought it in as something to offer people who’d just watched Glass Onion. Also of note, apparently, was Medieval — I’ve not heard anyone mention it, so I’ve no idea quite how this happened, but it was Netflix’s 3rd most-watched movie at one point over Christmas. Apparently it’s the story of a Czech commander who never lost a battle, and it stars Ben Foster, Michael Caine, Til Schweiger, and Matthew Goode. I guess “historical war movie with a few recognisable faces” appealed to people browsing Netflix for something new to bung on.

Other streamers focused on the Christmas period for their original titles, ticking the usual rom-com boxes, with the likes of Your Christmas or Mine? on Amazon Prime and Sky Cinema offering perhaps the most generically-titled movie ever, This is Christmas. Apparently it’s actually rather good (according to the one review I happened to read). Sky also premiered animated Terry Pratchett adaptation The Amazing Maurice, along with streaming debuts for the likes of Dreamworks animation The Bad Guys, “grey pound” target The Duke, Stephen King remake Firestarter, plus blockbusters (that I own on disc and really should’ve watched by now) The Batman and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Also The Nan Movie, but the less said about that the better. Amazon, meanwhile, had the streaming debut of Alex Garland’s Men, and gave a big push to Wonder Woman 1984 — bit odd, considering how long it’s been around. That said, I’ve still not seen it, so…

Over on Disney+, it was the usual deal of stuff rushed fresh from cinemas: their latest canon animation, Strange World, a riff on pulp sci-fi-/fantasy adventure flicks that I guess should be up my street, but doesn’t scream “Disney”; plus adult-focused fare, both acclaimed (Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin) and, um, less so (David O. Russell’s Amsterdam). Debuts elsewhere included Park Chan-wook’s latest, Decision to Leave, on MUBI, and Will Smith slavery action flick / wannabe-awards-contender Emancipation on Apple TV+.

As for the free TV-tied streamers, I’m sure they offered replays of their Christmas-schedule premieres, but I’d seen most of those already (except for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, which I actually own on 3D Blu-ray. I presume I heard the 3D was good or something, because the fact I still haven’t watched it indicates my broad level of interest). Anyway, catching my attention on iPlayer were the likes of A Bunch of Amateurs (about the amateur filmmakers of the long-running Bradford Film Club) and older flicks I really should’ve seen by now, like The Others and Out of Sight; plus obscure spy thriller When Eight Bells Toll, which I missed earlier in the year so appreciate getting another go at. As for All 4, they cycled in a bunch of stuff they’ve shown before and I’ve not got round to but, hey, you never know, maybe this time. We’re talking Black Rain, Monos, Wild Rose, Saint Maud, Rosemary’s Baby, The Red Turtle, several others… Someday.

Finally, as always, stuff I forked out for (or, as it’s Christmas, was given) on good ol’ shiny disc. This was set to be a pretty huge list (when isn’t it?), but the UK’s postal issues have delayed a couple of large overseas packages. I just hope they’re not lost… Anyway, there were plentiful additions to my 4K Ultra HD collection last month. Films I’d never seen included Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and David Lynch’s Lost Highway (I imported Criterion’s release from the US via Amazon, and it took three goes to actually deliver me a copy that wasn’t damaged). On the rewatch pile, there were lavish editions of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (the PQ doesn’t seem that much better than the old Blu-ray, to be frank, but there was more in the box, and I wanted to support Masters of Cinema going 4K) and Casablanca (although I also decided to keep my equally-lavish old Blu-ray edition, so I probably should’ve just bought the cheaper regular 4K release. Oh well). In more standard packaging, but welcome nonetheless, were Mike Hodges’ Croupier, Walter Hill’s The Driver, and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. I’ve owned the latter so many times, I was loathe to buy it again; but then I saw the picture comparisons…

On regular ol’ Blu-ray, Sight & Sound’s new list inspired some prep for next year’s Blindspot (ooh, preview!) by picking up Criterion’s editions of Beau Travail and Close-Up (another import that Evri tried to destroy: a neighbour found my parcel halfway down the road in a hedge, soaked through from the stormy weather. I shit you not. Luckily, although the package was a mess, the contents were fine). Brand-new releases were limited to Phil Tippett’s stop-motion nightmare Mad God, but catalogue titles making their UK disc debut included a couple from Eureka — “girls with guns” classic Yes, Madam! and Bob Hope-starring comedy/horror double-bill The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers — plus a Kickstarter edition of 1926 horror The Magician.

Finally-finally, I actually bought a DVD — wonders will never cease (although it’s one of a couple I’ve picked up this year, so maybe not that exceptional). Spied in Network’s pre-Christmas sale, it’s The Edgar Wallace Anthology, a collection of noir-esque British B-movies from the 1960s. The set contains just a couple of films to get through — 54, to be exact. That should keep me busy for a while…

The Failed Monthly Review of December 2022

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



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

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


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



The 91st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

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

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

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



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


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

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

It’s the Final Countdown: The Concluding Monthly Review of December 2021

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As mentioned last month, this post represents the end of 100 Films in a Year.

Er, except for all the end-of-year wrap-ups I need to do (did you think I’d leave you without an annual stats post? Perish the thought!)

But after that… the end? Really? Or is it…

Change, my dear. And it seems, not a moment too soon.

But let’s put that aside for, ooh, a couple of days, and instead look back at the final month of 2021…


#188 Home Sweet Home Alone (2021)
#189 Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
#190 Falling for Figaro (2020)
#191 Gremlins (1984)
#192 Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)
#193 Pather Panchali (1955)
#194 Black Widow 3D (2021)
#195 Tokyo Godfathers (2003), aka Tôkyô goddofâzâzu
#196 Happiest Season (2020)
#197 Zatoichi’s Conspiracy (1973), aka Shin Zatôichi monogatari: Kasama no chimatsuri
#198 Dreamcatcher (2003)
#199 Jingle All the Way (1996)
#200 The Final Countdown (1980)
#201 A Christmas Story (1983)
#202 The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
#203 A Boy Called Christmas (2021)
#204 Last Train to Christmas (2021)
#205 The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
#206 A Study in Scarlet (1933)
#207 23 Walks (2020)
Anna and the Apocalypse

Happiest Season

The Matrix Resurrections

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  • I watched 20 feature films I’d never seen before in December.
  • And that’s the first 20-film December — the final month to hit that milestone! It’s funny it’s worked out that way, because there was a 19-film December all the way back in 2008, at which time it was the second highest ever month, a title it held for seven years, and yet it’s taken three years beyond every other month (the last to crack 20 for the first time was November in 2018). Well, I got there just in time.
  • In terms of monthly averages, it surpasses the lot: December’s (previously 11.1, now 11.7), the rolling average of the last 12 months (previously 16.4, now 17.25), and the average for 2021 (previously 17.0, now finalised at 17.25).
  • As for the year, ending on #207 makes 2021 my fourth year ever to pass 200 films; and, as I did it in 2020 too, that’s the first time I’ve done it two years in a row.
  • Overall, it’s my third highest year ever. (I would’ve needed to make it to #261 for second place.)
  • See the Arbies for more on specific films, including #200 itself.
  • With Zatoichi’s Conspiracy, I’ve finally completed Criterion’s box set of the series. It’s taken longer than expected: I’ve gone from watching one Zatoichi a month (at my height of getting through them in 2018 and ’19) to more like one per year. Although that’s the end of the original film series, I’ve still got a few stragglers to go (a revival movie and three continuations/reboots). Hopefully they won’t take me until 2025…
  • I had two Blindspot films to watch this month to complete my challenge for 2021. I watched one, Satyajit Ray’s enduringly acclaimed depiction of a rural Indian childhood, Pather Panchali. The other was Come and See. I did plan to watch it — I set aside an evening and everything — but then… I just didn’t feel like it. I’ve been in a generally Christmassy mood this December, and it didn’t fit with that to spend two-and-a-half hours watching a film whose own blurb advertises it as “a senses-shattering plunge into the dehumanising horrors of war.” I mean, what could sound less festive than “a waking nightmare of unimaginable carnage and cruelty”? So, yeah, the second greatest film ever made can wait ’til another day.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Black Widow, A Boy Called Christmas, and Home Sweet Home Alone.



The 79th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
It’s proven divisive with critics and audiences alike, but I’m firmly in the camp that loved The Matrix Resurrections. Expect it to feature highly on my forthcoming “best of year” list.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
It was an enjoyable month overall (there’s a couple of likely 5s in the list), but duds crept in nonetheless, especially when trying to pack in the Christmas films. Perhaps the most disappointing was Home Sweet Home Alone. Some people would say predictably so, but I was open to the prospect of a remake. Unfortunately, this particular one fudges the fundamental conceit. Ho hum.

Most Christmassy Film of the Month
I don’t normally watch many Christmas films over the festive period. It’s not that I’m averse to them (far from it), I just don’t make a particular effort — and, as December is a time when I often am making a particular effort to round out some goal or other, other things can fall by the wayside. Well, this year I did put some effort into it, and — while I didn’t come close to completing the shortlist of 30 specific Christmas films I drew up — I did watch 10 festive films, which is a lot more than the two or three I usually manage. Of those, I reckon the most Christmassy of all was Happiest Season. I mean, what could be more Christmassy than a mix of festivities and familial awkwardness?

Most “I Only Chose to Watch It Because of the Title” Film of the Month
Regular readers will know I like to choose films that are somehow significant for my milestone numbers. My first-ever #100 was Citizen Kane, for example, and others have included Lawrence of Arabia, The Story of Film: An Odyssey, Stalker, Sholay, and, this year, Cinema Paradiso. So for 2021’s #200, I had to pick something befitting my last-ever (sort of) milestone movie. While not a particularly noteworthy film in itself, The Final Countdown seemed a thoroughly apt title.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
With just two new posts in December (and one of those only a brief Christmas message), let’s once again ignore their fate and see which was the most popular post overall. And this month it was… a tie! And a seasonal one at that, because the joint victors were The Past Christmas on TV and The Past Christmas on TV! Er, that’s the 2018 and 2019 editions, respectively. You might think the 2020 one was close behind… but you’d be wrong: for whatever reason, while those two topped the charts, last year’s Christmas TV post was way down at 25th. Not sure what’s going on there, but my referrals from IMDb suggest the elder posts’ victories may be due to a new series of Vienna Blood (I reviewed the first in the 2019 post) and Christmassy one-off Click & Collect, which I noticed popped up on Netflix this month (and I mentioned in the 2018 column).


To make my goal of 50 rewatches this year, I would’ve had to (re)watch 18 films this month. Considering my average for 2021 to the end of November was 2.9 rewatches a month, that didn’t seem particularly likely…

#33 Elf (2003)

Yeah, of course it didn’t happen. I didn’t even reach that average again (it ends up at 2.75 rewatches per month).

As for Elf, I enjoyed it more on this, my second viewing, when I was free from any hope of, say, well-executed character arcs (one of the main things I criticised it for in my above-linked review) and so just enjoyed the holiday hijinks.


Despite setting a new December record, my failures were as multitudinous as ever. My most noteworthy oversight from the big screen has to be Spider-Man: No Way Home, but there was also Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story and prequel The King’s Man, plus films with smaller releases that have nonetheless been much-discussed in cinephile circles, like C’mon C’mon, Lamb, and Titane. Also, Clifford the Big Red Dog. Hm.

There were similar big guns on the streamers, including forthcoming awards season contenders The Power of the Dog and The Lost Daughter on Netflix, plus other originals like Don’t Look Up, The Unforgivable, and Death to 2021 — though, after not much enjoying Death to 2020, I think I’ll skip its Charlie Brooker-less sequel. Over on Prime Video, there was a belated UK bow for Guy Ritchie’s Wrath of Man, plus Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos and sci-fi Encounter. And talking of Charlie Brooker and sci-fi, Apple TV+ offered the Black Mirror-esque Swan Song.

Sky Cinema’s originals were mostly Christmassy: as well as the ones I watched, they debuted the likes of 8-Bit Christmas and A Christmas Number One. Also this month, they’ve had Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights, plus a couple of things that I (annoyingly) bought on disc but haven’t watched yet, like Another Round and The Suicide Squad. Of course, Netflix and Amazon threw up a bunch of back catalogue stuff too, but, looking back over my long-lists, little jumps out at me as being worthy of particular note. That said, if you’ve not seen it, Netflix now has my #1 film of 2020, Never Rarely Sometimes Always. And, as well as meaning to catch Spielberg’s remake, I’d also like to make time to rewatch the original West Side Story, which is streaming on both Prime and iPlayer now.

Once again taking advantage of not having to worry about licensing windows, Disney+ offered up early streaming debuts for their latest ‘animated classic’, Encanto, plus Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, which seemed a bit gruelling for Christmastime viewing. The latter is getting a belated, limited release on 4K Blu-ray in the UK at the end of January, which I’ve preordered, but I should probably find the time to watch it on D+ first — if I don’t like it, it’ll save me a few bob.

And talking of things I’ve bought, that certainly didn’t slow down in December. As is always the case at this time of year, there were multiple big box sets, like folk horror collection All the Haunts Be Ours (encompassing a whopping 22 feature films and 14 shorts), or Arrow’s kung fu collection, Shawscope: Volume One (another 12 features. Vol.2 is due in June), or Indicator’s Mae West box set (another 11 films, plus a TV movie biopic), or the limited edition of Cartoon Saloon’s Irish Folklore Trilogy (including the only disc release ever planned for Apple TV+ exclusive Wolfwalkers), or The Film Detective’s Sherlock Holmes Vault Collection (I actually watched one of those! See #206).

Also in a ludicrously oversized box was StudioCanal’s 4K release of Mulholland Drive. Considering said box was (a) a weird size and (b) mostly full of air, I think there must’ve been some crossed wires in manufacturing. Similarly joining my 4K rewatch pile were Breathless, My Fair Lady, No Time to Die (a popular Christmas present, based on it becoming a Twitter trending topic on the 25th), Criterion’s edition of Citizen Kane (with dodgy 1080p disc), and Vinegar Syndrome’s 4K/3D edition of Flesh for Frankenstein (with dodgy 4K disc). Also Millennium Actress, part of a frankly excessive haul I ordered from All the Anime’s Christmas sale. Said indulgence also included regular Blu-rays of Birthday Wonderland, The Dragon Dentist, Jin-Roh, Mind Game, Night is Short, Walk on Girl, Promare, and Ride Your Wave. Not heard of some of those? Me either, to be honest — I got one of their mystery boxes. Still, it all looks interesting.

That’s not even all (I could name another dozen things I bought), but, honestly, it’s more than enough. I’ve once again tried to keep this section brief and to the point, and it’s once again about as long as the entire rest of the monthly review combined. Is it worth giving it its own post each month in 2022? Something to consider…


…but the moment has been prepared for.

The “Thank God That’s Over” Monthly Review of December 2020

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Yes, the rumours are true: 2020 is finally over! Though if you think 2021 is going to be significantly better, you haven’t been watching the news. But hey, there’s 12 whole months of it to come — maybe it’ll improve, like, halfway through?

Anyway, we’ll leave worries of the future for later. Right now, it’s time to kick off my annual look back at the year just gone. Yeah, I’m going to spend the next week or so reliving 2020 — but don’t worry, it’ll be limited to my film viewing (like, y’know, it always is).

The headline news is my final total: 264 feature films I’d never seen before, which sneaks past 2018’s tally of 261 to be my biggest year ever! Plus, as I wrote about earlier this month, if you combine that with my Rewatchathon total (46) then I’ve passed 300 features once again. Throw in my shorts too (a whopping 65 this year) and I can claim a final total of 375 films. Whew!

More lists and stats and whatnot about that in the days to come. First: focusing in on the last twelfth of the year, aka December.


#255 Klaus (2019)
#256 Agatha and the Midnight Murders (2020)
#257 Lovers Rock (2020), aka Small Axe: Lovers Rock
#258 The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two (2020)
#259 Soul (2020)
#260 Tenet (2020)
#261 Power of Grayskull: The Definitive History of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2017)
#262 Under the Skin (2013)
#263 Minions 3D (2015)
#264 Death to 2020 (2020)
Soul

Tenet

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  • I watched 10 new feature films in December.
  • On the downside, that makes it my smallest month of 2020. On the bright side, it means I’ve achieved my goal of watching at least ten new films every month (something I failed in 2019).
  • It’s below my December average, though (previously 11.2, now 11.1).
  • It means the monthly average for 2020 is finalised at exactly 22.0. That’s down from 23.1 at the end of last month, but is my highest yearly total ever (it has to be — I’ve watched more films than ever; that’s how it works).
  • But it does mean December remains the only month of the year never to have reached the 20-film mark. Maybe next year.
  • Talking of long-term goals, for a while now I’ve been tracking the dates on which I’ve never watched a film during the lifetime of this blog. You’d think after doing it for 14 days I’d’ve hit every date at least once, but that’s not the case: still missing were January 5th, May 23rd, and December 22nd. Despite knowing about those for a couple of years, I keep forgetting at the right time and so miss them; and this year I again forgot all about the December date until after the fact… but I’d happened to watch a film that evening anyway. Hurrah! Maybe I’ll finally hit the other two in 2021.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was arty sci-fi Under the Skin. That means I’ve completed the challenge, although I didn’t get through all my overflow films, sadly.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Christmas Chronicles 2 and Lovers Rock.



The 67th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
A couple of very enjoyable films this month, not least the latest from Pixar and Christopher Nolan (yes, I’m in the “Tenet was good” camp), but, in a Christmassy spirit, I’m giving this to the gorgeously-animated Netflix original, Klaus.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
For some it was the film of the year (it topped Sight & Sound’s poll and placed in Empire’s top ten, among others), but I thought the second Small Axe film, Lovers Rock, was a dull slog.

Best Double Entendre of the Month
Patting myself on the back for this one, but I was particularly pleased with my Letterboxd description of Under the Skin as Scarlett Johansson’s Twin Peaks — because it’s abstruse and meditative sci-fi like David Lynch’s TV series, and also boobies.

Best Re-use of Music of the Month
There are many reasons to look down on Minions, but the Minionisation of various classic pop and rock tunes is surprisingly entertaining.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
For the fifth and final time this year, my most-read post was my monthly TV column. (The highest film-related post was my Christmas review roundup.)



I didn’t find as much time for film viewing in December as I would’ve liked; and so, as the month drew to an end, I decided to prioritise my goal of watching a minimum of ten new films a month over my Rewatchathon target. That means I’ve failed to reach 50 rewatches for a second year in a row — but last year I only made it to 29, so at least I got a lot closer this time…

#45 Die Hard (1988)
#46 Presto (2018)

I watched Die Hard on Christmas Eve Eve — because, y’know, it’s a Christmas movie. It’s still a great film, whatever time of year you choose to watch it.

As for Presto, it is, of course, a short film, so I probably shouldn’t count it as a whole number (I don’t on my main list). But, hey, I make the rules around here, and as my chances of making #50 by honest means didn’t look great, I wanted to count everything I could. Besides, the point of the Rewatchathon is to make me rewatch stuff, and I’ve been meaning to rewatch Presto for years.


If I’d found the time to watch more films this month, I would have loved to make space for David Fincher’s latest, Mank, on Netflix; and the new animation from Cartoon Saloon, Wolfwalkers, on Apple TV+. They’re top of my watchlist for January.

Other new releases for December included the surprisingly-controversial Wonder Woman 1984 (its UK digital release is in a couple of weeks, but I’ll probably just wait for the Blu-ray); and, all on Netflix, awards contender Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, George Clooney sci-fi The Midnight Sky, lambasted musical The Prom, and Robert Rodriguez’s surprise spinoff from The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, We Can Be Heroes. Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series finished up on the BBC and iPlayer, with the fourth and fifth episodes/films, Alex Wheatle and Education. Meanwhile, the best Amazon could manage was A Christmas Gift for Bob, an unexpected sequel to that movie about a cat or whatever (I dunno, I’m not a cat person).

In terms of not-new streaming additions, those catching my eye on Netflix included Jessica Chastain actioner Ava, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie facing off in Mary Queen of Scots, Hugh Jackman political drama The Front Runner, and Robert Zemeckis’s Welcome to Marwen; plus Wild Rose, though that’s just jumped over from Amazon Prime. Netflix also added a bunch of stuff on December 31st, but I haven’t had time to go through that lot yet, so I’ll roll them into next month’s failures (or maybe I’ll even watch th— hahaha, no I won’t). Amazon added Greta Gerwig in Frances Ha, while iPlayer has a speedy debut for Monsoon starring Henry Golding.

Finally, I had another ridiculous haul of new Blu-rays this month. Highlights include Arrow’s 4K releases of Cinema Paradiso, Crash (both now contenders for 2021’s Blindspot list), and Tremors, plus their release of Japanese zombie actioner Versus; Indicator’s new edition of Roadgames (which I loved when I watched the Australian Blu-ray back in 2016), plus neo-noir Devil in a Blue Dress; a pair of Samuel Fuller titles from Eureka, Hell and High Water and House of Bamboo; and All The Anime’s 4K release of Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You, plus their new edition of his 5 Centimeters Per Second. If that wasn’t enough, there were 13 (yes, 13) more titles, mostly from sales — including the BFI’s 18-film Werner Herzog box set. Now I just need to get better at actually watching this stuff…


A new year begins. But first, there’s a lot more looking back at 2020 to be done. Stay tuned.

The Whimper-Not-a-Bang Monthly Review of December 2019

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Happy New Year, dear readers. In fact, Happy New Decade!

Well, kinda. Yeah, sure, technically it isn’t, but when people talk about “the 2010s” they’re going to mean “2010–2019” and when they talk about “the 2020s” they’re going to mean “2020–2029”, so…

Anyway, as usual I’m going to spend the first week (give or take) of this new year looking back at the old one. I already started that in my Christmas Day post — which contained the kind of thing I’d normally be writing about here, so now might be an appropriate time to read that if you haven’t already.

Otherwise, onwards to my final monthly review of the decade…


#147 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
#148 Eighth Grade (2018)
#149 Brightburn (2019)
#150 Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar (2019)
#151 Death on the Nile (1978)


  • So, I watched five new feature films in December.
  • The last of those came on New Year’s Eve, granting December a last-minute reprieve from being in my bottom 10% of months ever, and also from being one of my lowest months of 2019. Instead, that (dis)honour is shared by June and October.
  • 2019 was the first year since 2014 that any month tallied fewer than 10 films — and, with December now included among them, in total there were five such months.
  • That finalises the monthly average for 2019 as 12.58, which obviously December was well below.
  • It was also below the rolling average for the last 12 months (previously 13.3, now… 12.6, of course), and the average for December itself (previously 11.7, now 11.2).
  • There’ll be more on where this puts 2019 in relation to previous years in my annual statistics post, later in the week.
  • Nothing from Blindspot nor WDYMYHS again this month, meaning I got nowhere near completing either. Oh dear. But I did watch 17 films between the two this year, which is a better result than if I’d only been doing one of those challenges, so that’s good.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Brightburn and Eighth Grade.



The 55th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Well, this is easy-peasy. Of the five films I watched, four scored 3 stars. The other was Eighth Grade, which gets a full 5.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I watched some distinctly middle-of-the-road films this month, but plain old mediocrity is nothing in the face of the disappointment that was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
I only made four posts in December, and only one of those was an opening-weekend review of a highly-anticipated, much-talked-about final film in a 42-year-old ultra-popular franchise, so it should surprise no one that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the victor here.



I’d’ve had to rewatch 24 films in December to reach my goal of 50 for 2019. No surprise, that didn’t happen. But I did watch a few, at least.

#27 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Extended Edition (2001/2002)
#28 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Extended Edition (2002/2003)
#29 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – Extended Edition (2003/2004)

That’s the first time I’ve watched The Lord of the Rings since I started doing Rewatchathons. They’re still great.

And so my 2019 Rewatchathon ends on #29 — far lower than intended, but it’s better than 0, and that’s really the point.


The streamers seem to have gone absolutely bloody mental with new additions this month — Netflix could boast 87 additions yesterday alone, while literally thousands of films poured onto Amazon’s Prime Video across the month… at least according to the site I use to track it. In reality, a lot of the stuff that picked up as ‘new’ was already available (for some reason it seems much harder to track what’s new on Amazon than Netflix). Whatever — I didn’t watch any of them, so everything worthy of note pops up down here in my failures.

But before I get onto rattling off those titles, some comparatively short lists. Like for the cinema, where I missed what’s supposed to be one of the best films of the year, and another that’s supposed to be one of the worst. Those are Little Women and Cats, respectively. One I’ll surely pounce on when it hits disc is sequel/threequel/fourquel (depending how you want to count it) Jumanji: The Next Level, which is hopefully a bit of fun (I’ve not really read any reviews of that one).

Speaking of discs, a mix of new purchases and Christmas presents bulked out my to-watch list this month. The single biggest addition was Criterion’s Godzilla box set, with its 15 giant monster movies. I also got my mitts on their release of the Koker trilogy. Further catalogue additions came via Master of Cinema’s release of A Fistful of Dynamite and Arrow’s of The Exorcist III, while newer titles included Anna and the Apocalypse, Happy Death Day 2U, and Men in Black: International (it was on offer). This month’s discs were rounded out by a trio of rewatchers: Toy Story 4 (in 3D!), Deadwood: The Movie (without the much-desired deleted scenes), and miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (in its controversial HD restoration).

So, we return to Netflix and Amazon. The former had a few high-profile originals this month: possible awards contenders Marriage Story and The Two Popes, plus Michael Bay’s latest, 6 Underground. Some other 2019 releases I’ve yet to see elsewise also cropped up, including the new Hellboy, Missing Link, Mrs. Lowry & Son, Fighting with My Family, A Private War, and Mid90s. Amazon didn’t have any brand-new titles to brag about, but they did have some similarly recent acquisitions, including Wild Rose, Fisherman’s Friends, and Horrible Histories: The Movie. As for older titles popping up… well, there were many, but select ones of note across both services included Roman J. Israel, Esq. (with its Oscar-nominated turn from Denzel Washington), The Rover, The Breadwinner (moving from Amazon to Netflix), the original Benji, Blackfish, Young Mr. Lincoln, and The Great Escape (that’s right, I’ve never seen The Great Escape).

I’m gonna need to start watching considerably more films again to even touch the sides of that lot.


After I’ve done my usual array of posts analysing 2019, it’ll be on to 2020 — my 14th year. And it’s entirely possible it’ll be the year I reach #2000…

The Tercentenary Monthly Update for December 2018

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This year, I watched over 300 films… just not if you count by my usual rules. I wrote about that earlier this month, so I won’t rehash it all here; but to update the numbers: my final tally of new films is 261, plus 50 in my Rewatchathon, and 8 short films to boot. Add all that up and you’ve got 319.


#248 The Christmas Chronicles (2018)
#249 Torment (1944), aka Hets
#250 Sorry to Bother You (2018)
#251 Snowpiercer (2013)
#252 Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)
#253 Light the Fuse… Sartana is Coming (1970), aka Una nuvola di polvere… un grido di morte… arriva Sartana
#254 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
#255 Music in Darkness (1948), aka Musik i mörker
#256 The Shape of Water (2017)
#257 Zatoichi the Outlaw (1967), aka Zatôichi rôyaburi
#258 The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)
#259 Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009)
#260 A Christmas Carol (2018)
#261 Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Snowpiercer

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

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  • I watched 14 new films this month — a perfectly respectable number, really, but it’s tied with August for the lowest month of 2018. That’s the first time August has been the year’s lowest month, though December previously took the (dis)honour in 2016.
  • It also means December remains my only month to have never achieved a tally of 20+. It’s now a whole year before I can try that again (obviously).
  • And I didn’t watch a film on December 22nd, one of the three outstanding dates on which I’ve ‘never’ watched a film, so that’ll have to wait a whole ‘nother year too.
  • However, this month did beat the December average (previously 11.5, now 11.7), but wasn’t close to the monthly average for 2018, which is now finalised at 21.75.
  • Two Ingmar Bergman-related films this month: one he wrote, Torment, and one he directed, Music in Darkness. I got Criterion’s gorgeous box set for Christmas, which duplicates numerous titles from an old Tartan DVD box set I’ve owned for years, so before I get stuck into the Criterion set I’m watching the films that are unique to the Tartan set, with an eye to selling it. There are only three, though, so I’m 66.7% complete already.
  • This month’s Blindspot film: a 2013 film that only got a UK release a couple of months ago, when it was snuck out on digital-only with no fanfare. Not that that’s what held me back: I imported the US Blu-ray over four years ago. No, this is just my own inexplicable tardiness (again). Anyway, the film in question is Snowpiercer. Thankfully, it lived up to the wait and the hype.
  • And, with that, all 22 of this year’s Blindspot and WDYMYHS films are complete!



The 43rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Ooh, this is a toughie — not, as is sometimes the case, because I didn’t really love anything this month, but because there were at least three films I adored and are strong contenders for my forthcoming 2018 top ten. But on balance I’m going to plump for the dystopian sci-fi allegory of Snowpiercer.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing I outright hated this month, so it’s a question of which was the most disappointing among things I at least liked. On that score, I think I have to go for Light the Fuse… Sartana is Coming, because it’s emblematic of how underwhelming I found that series on the whole.

Best “Christmas Carol” of the Month
I watched altogether too many different adaptation of A Christmas Carol this month, including a meta-ish one in The Man Who Invented Christmas, a Muppet-y one in The Muppet Christmas Carol, and a Shakespearean-studio-sitcom one in the Upstart Crow Christmas special. But I think my favourite was actually the most straightforward: a filmed version of Simon Callow’s one-man show, in which he just reads the story, basically. That’s to undersell it, though: he performs the story, and there’s some neat but not overdone direction to match. It was released in cinemas earlier in the month and screened on BBC Four over Christmas. if you missed it, it’s still on iPlayer here.

Best Spider-Man of the Month
Spider-Verse featured a surfeit of Spider-People to choose from, and while it may’ve been newbie Miles Morales’ film, with a key role for a worn-out Peter Parker, there’s definitely something to be said for Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir. Part of me wants to see a whole spin-off film starring him; part of me thinks that would be a bit much. A decent-length short film would be welcome, though.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Netflix’s Mowgli was building a comfortable lead for itself in this category, far ahead of second-placed Spider-Verse… and then Bandersnatch happened. The first “Netflix interactive film” generated a tonne of buzz on social media (it was the top trend on Twitter almost all day on its release), and I watched and reviewed it promptly. Those factors combined led to a surge of page views that saw it surpass Mowgli’s 21-day tally in under 24 hours. Of course, they’re both Netflix films, which almost always do well in these stats. And with a couple more days under its belt since then, Bandersnatch may have found itself among my most-viewed posts of the entire year, despite only being around for three days.



My evenly-spaced-throughout-the-year Rewatchathon schedule allows for four films most months, but for some reason it decided there needed to be five in December. There have to be two “five” months to get me to 50, but why did one have to be the very last month of the year?! (I mean, when you stop and think about it it’s kinda logical this would happen, but it did seem to put a burden on the final month of the task).

Anyway, I made it, so that’s jolly.

#46 The Princess Bride (1987)
#47 Scooby-Doo (2002)
#48 Death Becomes Her (1992)
#49 Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
#50 The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

I don’t really feel like doing a Guide To The Princess Bride anytime soon (my backlog’s too huge as it is), but I should someday — it’s a magnificent film that, with hindsight, deserved a place in my 100 Favourites.

It wasn’t a conscious choice to end with three 1992 films back-to-back, it’s just a bizarre coincidence. Indeed, I watched Home Alone 1 last Christmas and intended to get round to the sequel back then. Instead, it took me 371 days. Though, another coincidence: they were both Rewatchathon #49.

I wrote a little about Death Becomes Her and Scooby-Doo on Letterboxd, though to the latter I’d add my highly amusing observation about the lead cast being a bunch of “before they weren’t famous” faces.


Other sites and blogs may get their year-end stuff out in December (or, if you’re Empire magazine, Oc-frickin’-tober), but if you write a blog that covers everything you see in a whole year, you ain’t done ’til 11:59:59pm on 31st December.

So, as usual, January will begin by looking back over 2018, in a series of lists and whatnot that I’ll post over the rest of this week. And then I’ll start this shebang all over again, for my 13th year. Lucky for some…

The Conclusory Monthly Update for December 2017

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And so another year comes to an end — welcome to 2018, dear readers!

Before that, I’m going to spend the next week-ish raking over the remnants of the year just ended. First up: the month of December, and my final tally of new films watched in 2017.


#164 Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
#165 Her (2013)
#166 Atomic Blonde (2017)
#167 Men in Black 3 (2012)
#168 Your Name. (2016), aka Kimi no na wa.
#169 Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
#170 Hidden Figures (2016)
#171 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
#172 Forbidden Planet (1956)
#173 Elf (2003)
#174 Scrooged (1988)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
.


  • 11 new films this month sees me reach a final total of 174 for the year, my third highest ever behind 2015’s 200 and 2016’s 195.
  • But that main list total was undoubtedly decreased by putting effort into my Rewatchathon — what if I added the two totals together? Well, there’ll be more on that in my annual stats post later in the week…
  • Other than that, it’s a bit of an unremarkable monthly tally: it’s below the December average (previously 11.55, now 11.5), below the rolling average of the last 12 months (though it bests December 2016, so raises that from 14.42 to 14.5), and below the average for 2017 (previously 14.8, now finalised at 14.5).
  • Earlier this year, Empire magazine published their latest reader-voted 100 Greatest Movies list. Watching It’s a Wonderful Life means I have just 2½ to go: La La Land (yep, still not seen it), True Romance, and the film I can never remember if I saw as a kid or not, E.T.
  • This month’s Blindspot film: sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, which is still impressive in its own way but has inevitably been out-sci-fi-ed in the last six decades.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was more science fiction: Her, which is basically an episode of Black Mirror. A good one, though.



The 31st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I watched a few Christmas films this year, which makes a change, and one of those is also my favourite film of the month. As it’s a long-fêted classic I was a little sceptical about how good It’s a Wonderful Life could actually be. Turns out, it’s magnificent.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
No real stinkers this month, but my least favourite was another Christmas film: Will Ferrell comedy Elf. It’s alright, but no classic.

Most Kick-Ass Women of the Month
Sure, Rey could get you good with a lightsaber, and whatever-Charlize-Theron’s-character-was-called-in-Atomic-Blonde could hand your arse to you in a single-take stairwell fight, but the women of Hidden Figures fought the patriarchy for real — and racism, too, while they were at it.

Favourite Porg of the Month
Porg, Millennium Falcon, window

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
You might think the release of a new Star Wars film would walk this, but you’d be wrong: the victory goes to my monthly TV review, which this time covered The Punisher, Detectorists, The Good Place, and so on. It’s the sixth time a TV post has won this award in 2017 — that’s half the year, folks! (The Last Jedi was of course the most-viewed film review, and by a considerable margin: out of all posts it came 6th, with the next new film post at 32nd.)


I didn’t do my review advent calendar again this year, but by coincidence I did post exactly 25 new reviews.


My Rewatchathon goal of 52 films should’ve averaged out at 4⅓ a month, but I came into December with seven left to get through. Did I manage it?

#46 The Terminator (1984)
#47 For a Few Dollars More (1965)
#48 Star Wars: The Force Awakens 3D (2015)
#49 Home Alone (1990)
#50 Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge (2017)
#51 Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942)
#52 Airplane! (1980)

Yes, I did — but only just: I watched Airplane on December 31st.

It’s been about 25 years since I last watched Home Alone. It’s not a bad kids’ film, is it? I’d forgotten how little of it is actually the famous stuff with the burglary and the traps.

My full review of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon from 2008 is linked above, which I mostly stand by (I found Lionel Atwill’s Moriarty less underpowered now), but it’s also worth noting that this time I watched a colourised version. I jotted a couple of thoughts about that in my Letterboxd diary here.

Speaking of which, there are also a couple of notes on my Force Awakens rewatch here.


Everything kicks off again, for the 12th time.

Before that: all the stats and lists pertaining to my 2017 viewing.