Tag Archives: February

February’s Failures

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Welcome to my monthly “Failures” column, where I look back at some of the films I could, would, maybe even should have watched last month… but failed to.

Normally theatrical releases feel like the right place to start this column, but I’m going to pivot slightly this week and look through the prism of the Oscars. I stayed up to watch the ceremony this past weekend, as I have every year for the past twenty-something years. I’m not even a great believer in the quality of the awards, but there’s something about the occasion and pomp of it all that I enjoy nonetheless. It’s certainly not about backing my favourite film(s), because this year I’d only seen one of the Best Picture nominees (Dune: Part Two) — and so that’s some kind of failure in itself, even though they’re not all necessarily readily available here in the UK right now.

Well, that depends how you define “readily available” — just because a few of them were only released here last month doesn’t guarantee they’re playing widely; and while you can rent The Brutalist for £16, I’m never going to pay that for a rental. Not everything’s so pricey: you can rent the night’s big winner, Anora, for a fiver in UHD, and the same for BAFTA victor Conclave. That said, you can’t rent Wicked for any price now, which is usually a sign that it’s coming to a streamer soon. It won’t be the first: Emilia Pérez is a Netflix film, so has been on there since it came out, of course; The Substance has been on MUBI for a little while; and, with no fanfare whatsoever, Amazon Prime dropped Nickel Boys last Friday. That just leaves A Complete Unknown and I’m Still Here as theatrical-only propositions — and the latter would’ve been mentioned at the top of this column anyway, because it only came out on February 21st.

Most of February’s other theatrical releases are unlikely to trouble next year’s awards season. They’re led by a couple of ‘fourquels’, Captain America: Brave New World and Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, which are both the kind of film I’ll catch one day in no hurry (indeed, for the former, I have plenty of ‘homework’ viewing to do first). The year-round horror parade this month offered Stephen King adaptation The Monkey and emoji-inspired Heart Eyes, while school half-term fare was led by Captain Underpants spinoff Dog Man (my six-year-old nephew enjoyed that, I’m told). There was also poorly-reviewed actioner Love Hurts, and a couple more films from the 2024 awards cycle that didn’t trouble the big prizes in the end: The Last Showgirl, Memoir of a Snail, and September 5.

Of greatest interest to me, debuting right at the end of the month, was Superboys of Malegaon — an adaptation of the documentary Supermen of Malegaon, which was one of my top films in 2015. It’s a limited release, and not screening anywhere conveniently near me, so I hope it comes to a streamer sooner rather than later.

As for said streamers, the only totally original title I noted this month was Apple TV+’s romance/action mashup The Gorge, which I might have been tempted to watch if I hadn’t finally cancelled my subscription because I don’t watch it enough. Elsewhere, Amazon Prime gave relatively strong promo pushes to the likes of Anthony Mackie-starring sci-fi Elevation, Justin Kurzel-directed thriller The Order, and video game adaptation Borderlands, and yet snuck out the likes of Sing Sing (another Oscar nominee) and Here, the Robert Zemeckis films starring Tom Hanks, alongside the aforementioned Nickel Boys. Pick your depressing truth: Amazon either have no clue what the heck they’re doing, or they know streaming audiences are more likely to watch one of the former three.

Acclaimed films debuting on other streamers included two-time BAFTA nominee (including Saoirse Ronan for Best Actress) The Outrun on Netflix, and Letterboxd favourite I Saw the TV Glow on NOW. Also on the latter: motorcycle crime drama The Bikeriders and geriatric revenge comedy Thelma, plus the third theatrical Garfield movie, The Garfield Movie (bit of an abuse of the definite article, there), and the feature directorial debut of Ishana “daughter of M.” Night Shyamalan, The Watched (known as The Watchers in the US — apparently it was retitled here to avoid confusion with a Netflix show, which (a) I’ve never heard of, and (b) is, like this movie, American).

Amongst the many other comings-and-goings in the streaming space, my attention was caught by Magic Mike’s Last Dance on Prime, meaning that whole trilogy is now on there — not my kind of film on the surface, but the involvement of Steven Soderbergh means they’ve long been on my watchlist. Also now on Prime: the most recent Charlie’s Angels reboot, Monty Python-adjacent comedy A Fish Called Wanda, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s first Oscar-nominated performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Highlights* (* mileage may vary) on other streamers included Beau Is Afraid, Polite Society, and Renfield on Netflix; Doctor Zhivago, Godland, and The Outfit on iPlayer; Moonfall, Pig, and Sexy Beast on Channel 4; and a 4K restoration of Tsui Hark’s romantic comedy Shanghai Blues on MUBI.

Notice I’ve not mentioned Disney+ at all yet. There were literally no films of note on there all month, again. Not even something for the ever-lengthy list of “stuff I already own on disc to (re)watch”, which this month, across all the other streamers, included All the President’s Men, Another Round, Chinatown, the Dark Knight trilogy, Ex Machina, Hugo, The Long Good Friday Puss in Boots, Requiem for a Dream, Se7en, Stargate, the Three Colours trilogy, and To Live and Die in L.A.. And to think I always tell myself one of the main reasons to stay engaged with physical media is because you can get films you just wouldn’t see on streaming.

Well, in fairness, that’s often still the case, as many of my newest acquisitions demonstrate. I mean, who’s going to stream the kind of stuff Radiance put out? February’s releases included a double bill from Hong Kong New Wave icon Patrick Tam, Nomad and My Heart Is That Eternal Rose; Kinji Fukasaku’s final yakuza film, Hokuriku Proxy War; and ’80s German heist thriller The Cat. The same can be asked of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema line, which recently added an altogether different kind of Fukasaku film, fantasy actioner Legend of the Eight Samurai, alongside box set Sirk in Germany 1934–1935, containing three features and three shorts directed by melodrama auteur Douglas Sirk during his earlier days in Germany. Heck, even though the kind of things 88 Films release might be more accessible — HK actioners like the Jackie Chan-starring Dragon Fist, now in 4K, or The Lady Assassin — which streamer is going to dig into that catalogue? None of the major ones. And that’s before we get into all the other benefits of actually owning physical copies, of course.

Certainly, it’s not as if I don’t buy streaming-friendly titles too. I’ve definitely spotted Lifeforce on Prime Video and/or Netflix in the past, but I still bought Arrow’s new UHD disc, for all the reasons that make physical media superior (I’ll give you a list if you want, but there’s no real reason to rehash those arguments in full here unless someone literally asks for it). The same could be said for other new-to-4K titles like The Lion in Winter and Constantine, and I paid extra for North by Northwest when the tat-filled collector’s edition unexpectedly came back in stock at Amazon. Why save money with a regular edition when you can pay tens of pounds more for a hard box and some paper bits & pieces you’ll only look at once or twice? Haha… ha… hmm.

Oh, but it also has a booklet. I love a booklet. You definitely don’t get booklets on streaming.

The Belated Monthly Review of February 2025

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A belated ‘hello’ from me for this month’s look back at last month. Don’t take this post’s delayed appearance as a worrying sign of me slipping further away from the blog — I simply had a busy end to February, meaning I couldn’t get a head start on this, and then an occupied weekend (mainly Oscar-focused), which combined meant I was only able to crack on with this post today. Similarly, I wouldn’t bank on seeing the “failures” before Thursday.

(Related side note: across 116 adjective-led monthly reviews, can you believe I’ve never used “belated”? This certainly isn’t the first late edition! Maybe I previously thought it was too obvious. Well, I’ve burnt that usage now.)

A separate issue: no new film reviews yet this year. I now ‘owe’ at least three, to fulfil my commitment of reviewing the previous month’s favourite: The Good, the Bad, the Weird from December, Milano Calibro 9 from January, and whatever this month’s winner is (see below to find out!) I’m hoping to begin that catch-up in March, but we’ll see what else life throws my way.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#12 Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) — 50 Unseen #3
#13 Macbeth (2025) — New Film #2
#14 Vendetta for the Saint (1969) — Wildcard #3
#15 Silver Blaze (1937) — Series Progression #2
#16 Long Story Short (2021) — Wildcard #4
#17 Róise & Frank (2022) — Failure #2
#18 Snake Eyes (1998) — Rewatch #2
#19 Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) — WDYMYHS #2
#20 Freaks (1932) — Blindspot #2
#21 Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) — Wildcard #5
#22 Marty (1955) — Wildcard #6


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in February.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • #22 is the furthest I’ve reached by the end of February since my new-style Challenge began in 2022 — my target for this point is only #16, so I easily cleared that. (I would have had to get all the way to #24 to be a whole month ahead.)
  • Watching Silver Blaze means I’ve finally finished the Arthur Wontner Sherlock Holmes films (what survives of them, anyway: there were five; one is lost), which is the first time in quite a while* I’ve been able to remove a series from my “in the middle of” list. (* The last was Song of the Thin Man, completing my Thin Man rewatch, back in May 2024 — nine months ago.)
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Tod Browning’s enduringly-controversial carnival drama Freaks.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr — it’s the one where the house falls around him.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Róise & Frank and rewatched Snake Eyes.



The 117th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m borderline on whether this even counts as a “a film”, because it’s a filmed stage production — that’s the kind of thing I’ve gone either way on in the past. The deciding factor, really, was that I saw it in a cinema — not only because “what you see in cinemas is films”, but because if I didn’t count it, I wouldn’t be able to count it towards my stats at the end of the year, which could potentially lead me to write something like “I made no trips to the cinema this year” when I had, in fact, made one. Also, the fact I’m now saying it’s the best feature-length filmed thing I watched this month is another reason it seems worthy of inclusion. Anyway, it’s the David Tennant and Cush Jumbo-starring version of Macbeth, which seems to have been so popular they’ve scheduled multiple encore screenings and even a proper re-release — so if you missed it and are interested, keep your eye on local listings.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
No disasters this month, which leaves me with the always-slightly-awkward task of lambasting something I fundamentally enjoyed, just not as much as everything else. If you were to look at my Letterboxd diary, you might think this an easy decision: there’s only one film there I’ve graded 3 stars, so it’s that one… right? But I don’t feel like Silver Blaze was that bad. But then, what was? So, any pick is a bit harsh, but I’ve still settled on <strongLong Story Short, which I think I may have slightly overrated because its concluding message hit me particularly hard, for whatever reason.


Reviews? Maybe! Films? Definitely. And, launching off the success of this month, there’s a very real chance I’ll be a whole month ahead of target on my Challenge by the end of March. No guarantees, though — you’ll just have to come back in 31 29 days to find out.

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.

Not Quiet on the 100 Films Front: The Monthly Review of February 2023

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This post named in honour of the big winner at the BAFTAs, obviously. Of course, I haven’t seen it, so that’s where anything I have to say about it ends.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#10 A Night at the Opera (1935) — Failures #2
#11 Fantasia (1940) — Series Progression #1
#12 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) — Series Progression #2
#13 Tropical Malady (2004) — Blindspot #2
#14 Ace in the Hole (1951) — WDYMYHS #2
#15 The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes’ Greatest Case (1932) — Rewatch #2
#16 Die Hart (2023) — New Film #2


  • I watched nine feature films I’d never seen before in February.
  • That means I again failed to hit my minimum target of ten new films a month, for the third month in a row.
  • Although, as I only watched eight last month, it also makes it the best month of 2023 so far.
  • On the bright side, six of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch, which leaves me bang on target.
  • I also watched five short films, an uncommonly high number, so that’s something too.
  • After accidentally forgetting the category last month, I quickly caught up on Series Progression, watching two qualifying films at the start of the month. But then I didn’t watch any more films from any ‘non-compulsory’ categories (i.e. the ones where I don’t need to watch a film every month), so swings and roundabouts.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched A Night at the Opera.



The 93rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Not a bad bunch of films this month, but fairly easily the best of them was Billy Wilder’s satirical portrait of journalism — its cynicism so dark that it’s commonly labelled a film noir — Ace in the Hole.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Not many outright bad films this month, so it’s easy to declare Die Hart the ‘winner’ here. I didn’t hate it, but it’s high on obvious gags and light on genuine laughs. On the bright side, it’s barely 80 minutes long.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
My first review roundup of the year included three Oscar nominees and a then-recent new-ish release, so I guess it should be no surprise that Weeks 3–4 topped this list with ease.



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


It’s time for the Oscars. I’ve only seen two of this year’s Best Picture nominees so far, but hopefully I’ll catch some more before the ceremony. Whatever happens, there’s a greater-than-zero chance that March’s monthly review title will somehow reference the winner.

February’s Failures

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Once upon a time, I never thought I’d be mentioning a Jackass film on this blog, but the release of revival movie Jackass Forever caused me to seek out the first two in the series, and I do intend to watch the rest eventually. Not going to the cinema for it, though. Or, indeed, anything else this month. Fare like Moonfall and Uncharted is very much in the “wait for streaming” camp for me — I’ll surely watch them both eventually, and it may even turn out I enjoy them, but they’ll wait. I did enjoy Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, so I was tempted by Death on the Nile, but, honestly, I’m still not sold on the whole “living with Covid” thing, so it’s going to take more than that to persuade me out to the cinema. Other things — like animations Belle and Flee — had more limited releases and I don’t even know if they came near me.

The return of the big screen doesn’t mean the streamers have let up on originals, although their quality continues to be variable. I’ve heard good things about Steven Soderbergh’s latest, Kimi, which went straight to Sky Cinema here in the UK, emulating it’s “direct to HBO Max” release Stateside. But their other originals — school shooting thriller The Desperate Hours and language-barrier romcom Book of Love — have received lesser notices. Netflix, on the other hand, could boast Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s first film in almost a decade, Bigbug, and yet I’ve seen precisely one tweet mentioning it. Their latest reincarnation of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, on the other hand, did seem to generate chatter, but little of it positive. And the less said about Madea and Mrs Brown teaming up for A Madea Homecoming, the better.

In that middle ground of “cinema releases coming quickly to streaming”, MUBI continue to rule with the likes of Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman and Icelandic folk horror Lamb, although Disney+ come close with Kingsman prequel The King’s Man and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch. On a slightly slower track, Sky Cinema also had a pretty strong showing of stuff this month, mainly in the horror realm. We’re talking Freaky, The Forever Purge (I’ve got a couple of others left before I get to that, personally), Ben Wheatley’s In the Earth, and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (I quite enjoyed the first, so I’ll give it a chance). Also, not a horror but it looks horrific: Space Jam: A New Legacy. And quirky British true story comedy Dream Horse, which looks worth it just for the international cast’s attempts at the Welsh accent.

As usual, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer, and All 4 produced plenty of stuff from deeper in the archive that I’m happy to fill out my watchlist with while clearly being in no rush to get round to. Normally I’d include Netflix in that list, but I’ve not jotted down much on my shortlist this month; though MUBI had an uncommonly good showing, the standout being Jiro Dreams of Sushi right at the end of the month. Others of particular interest included The Passion of the Christ (I feel I really should’ve seen that by now), the 1950s version of Around the World in 80 Days, Ripley adaptation The American Friend, and Memento, which I haven’t revisited in many a year. I own it on DVD, but, naturally, it’s in HD on iPlayer.

Finally, the inexorable growth of my Blu-ray collection continued unabated, with a mix of new releases and sale pickups. Although I watched Ghostbusters: Afterlife in February, I picked it up in the series’ Ultimate Collection box set, meaning I now have 4K copies of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II on my watchlist. And that’s not all from the rewatch back catalogue, because HMV’s rolling offer of half-price UHD discs also allowed me to nab La La Land, Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express, the original Scream, and The Shawshank Redemption — a rare film that I love (or like a lot, at least) but never upgraded to Blu-ray, so jumping from DVD straight to 4K feels like some kind of victory.

There were new releases in 4K too, of course, most prominently Dune: Part One (how I wish it said that on the spine — it inevitably won’t match the sequel), which I imported from France so I also have it in 3D, and The King’s Man. Could’ve just watched that on Disney+, or at least given it a go there first, but as I own the first two it was inevitable I’d buy it, so I just got on with it. And, as we all know, discs are better than streaming anyway. I also took a punt on adult fantasy animation The Spine of Night in 4K, imported from the US alongside a new edition of Candyman III: Day of the Dead — it’s meant to be a rubbish film, but it completes my Candyman collection. Unfortunately, it’s also a somewhat rubbish disc, with noticeably weaker picture quality compared to a German release from a while back. Still, lots of special features. If I actually like it when I watch it, maybe I’ll treat myself to the German disc too. Based on everyone else’s opinion, that seems unlikely.

UK labels continue to rollout martial arts classics — I feel like something must have changed in the licensing of these, because we got hardly any a few years ago, while now there’s at least a couple every month from 8 Films or Eureka, and now Arrow getting in on the game too. Anyway, this month’s releases included The Flag of Iron and Legendary Weapons of China from 88 Films, and Skinny Tiger and Fatty Dragon from Eureka, who also released silent epic The Indian Tomb on their Masters of Cinema line. They’d previously released Fritz Lang’s 1950s remake on DVD, which went OOP just before their release of the silent one came out. I presume that’s just a funny coincidence. And last but very much not least on the new release pile, Mark Cousins’ The Story of Film: A New Generation. Long-time readers will surely remember how much I loved his series The Story of Film: An Odyssey, so I’ve been eagerly awaiting this sequel. Now I’ve just got to make room for its near-three-hour running time.

I’ve ummed and ahhed for years about upgrading my Charlie Chaplin box set to the Blu-ray version, especially as there have been a couple now, and the extra features vary, and the picture quality isn’t always the best. But Amazon cut it to such a low price this month, I decided just to give in — so that’s 11 features, a mix of ones I’ve seen and ones I haven’t. They may not be the very best available, but they’re a lot better than my DVD copies (which I can hang onto for the missing extras, because I’ll never make much reselling them anyway), and a lot cheaper than buying the films individually — which I can always do if I particularly love any of them. Criterion have put most of them out in the US, and are about to start bringing them to the UK, so we’ll see as they go along. Talking of box sets I’d overlooked but was tempted into by sales (it might not sound like a common problem, but it is for me), Indicator tempted me to grab their four-film John Ford at Columbia set this month; and because that wasn’t expensive enough to qualify for free postage, I also delved into their 5-for-whatever offer, picking up Eyes of Laura Mars, Modern Romance, Night Tide, See No Evil, and Time Without Pity. Their releases are so well-done, and their picks often so obscure but intriguing, that it’s easy to just keep buying them. Now, I just need to make the effort to actually watch more of them, too.

Looking at that (not-so-)little lot, it’s easy to see why my bank account felt severely depleted by the end of the month. Maybe in March I’ll finally resist the lure of sales… but there’s always all those exciting new releases… Oh, I’m damned.

The Comparatively Calm Monthly Review of February 2022

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For a moment, set aside your fears of World War III and/or anticipation for The Batman (whichever is taking up more of your mental capacity right now; possibly both) and journey with me back, back, back to a time when military invasion was just a threat and Batman reactions were still embargoed — i.e. last month.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#13 She’s Gotta Have It (1986) — WDYMYHS #2
#14 The Hobbit (1977) — Decades #8
#15 Jackass Number Two (2006) — Series Progression #1
#16 Shot in the Dark (1933) — Decades #9
#17 A Room with a View (1985) — Rewatches #2
#18 The Misfits (2021) — New Films #2
#19 Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (1969) — DVDs #2
#20 Los Olvidados (1950) — Blindspot #2


  • I watched 13 feature films I’d never seen before in February.
  • Seven of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • As with last month’s ‘new film’, The Misfits is originally a 2021 release; but, best I can tell, its UK debut only came this month (as a direct-to-Prime Amazon Exclusive), so it counts as a 2022 release for the purposes of the Challenge.
  • Another oddity of my new rules kicked in this month. When I watched the first Jackass movie, it didn’t count for anything (the only place it could’ve qualified was Decades for the 2000s, but that had been taken); but then I watched the first sequel, and now that does count, as Series Progression. My scrupulous planning ahead for rare eventualities does pay off, see.
  • All the great films from the 1930s that I haven’t seen and could’ve watched to count towards my Decades tally, and instead I’ve filled the slot with a 52-minute “quota quickie” murder mystery. And, frankly, I don’t regret it in the slightest.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Luis Buñuel’s ‘true story’ of children in poverty in mid-century Mexico, Los Olvidados, aka The Young and the Damned. That English-language title does kinda sum it up.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Spike Lee’s pro debut, She’s Gotta Have It, which (as discussed last month) completes the films for which I was reliant on streaming. That’s one less thing to worry about.
  • Away from the Challenge, 13 beats January’s 11 to be 2022’s de facto best month in those stakes.
  • But it’s not a huge number, so falls short of most stats I keep an eye on: February’s all-time performance (the best is 27); the February average (previously 14.2, now 14.1); and the average of the last 12 months (previously 16.0, now 14.8).
  • My “failures” section may have been spun off onto its own dedicated post this year, but that hasn’t affected how many I actually watch: this month, I didn’t catch up with any of last month’s failures.



The 81st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Its nostalgia-driven style may have enraged some critics and cineastes, but (anecdotally, at least) it seems to have worked gangbusters for regular folk — and, for once, I’m counting myself among the latter. There were certainly ‘worthier’ films among this month’s viewing, but nothing so all-around entertaining as Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
A few to choose from this month — it’s felt like an underwhelming start to the year, I must say, with the poor and (mostly) mediocre films outweighing the good stuff. Anyway, the nadir has to be The Brits Are Coming, known in the US (and therefore most places online) as The Con Is On. It promises a stylish crime caper with an all-star cast. It delivers an amateurish-feeling wannabe-comedy that makes you wonder how come this cast were that desperate for work.

Most Compromised Viewing Experience of the Month
Nowadays, we’re used to ultra-faithful HD presentations that do their utmost to present films in their original cuts and original aspect ratio with original colour grading and original audio, to faithfully replicate the filmmakers’ intended vision. But not everything has been granted such treatment, like my DVD copy of Tintin and the Temple of the Sun — or, as the revised title card would have it, courtesy of some Windows MovieMaker-level text animation, The Seven Crystal Balls & Prisoners of the Sun. At least the rest of the opening titles are intact, which apparently wasn’t the case on VHS. The tape also cut two musical numbers, though the DVD only restores one. Despite most of the film being dubbed into English — with no original French audio option offered — the song wasn’t dubbed; but nor is it subtitled, so goodness knows what it was about. It’s bookended by some weird digital edits, suggesting more footage was cut, or possibly lost. And talking of audio, serves me right for choosing the remixed 5.1 track, which occasionally misses random sound effects and music cues. All of that without mentioning the strange digital artefacts that pop up now and then. Far from ideal… but also, as far as I’m aware, the only English-friendly version available (I doubt they fixed any of these problems for the iTunes release).

Moment That’s a Great Visual But Impossible to Adequately Describe in Writing of the Month
There’s a bungee jump stunt in Jackass Number Two that isn’t one of their most elaborate or dangerous, and certainly is a long way from being their grossest, but nonetheless ends in a moment of hilarity that, literally, has to be seen. I could try to describe exactly what occurs in the split-second, but it would take many words to convey accurately and still wouldn’t do justice to seeing it happen in a fraction of a second. It’s not even their funniest or most audacious thing, it’s just… gravity. Nature always wins.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Despite my return to (relatively) regular posting this year, February is my lowest month for traffic since… well, since as far back as the WordPress stats page shows (October 2019). Oh well. And despite many of my posts containing multiple different films to pique readers’ interest(s), it was actually a single-film review that came out on top for new posts: Ghostbusters: Afterlife.



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


Assuming we don’t all get nuked by a frustrated Russian, next month begins with The Batman, which got rave reviews when its embargo lifted yesterday, and ends with the Oscars, which can’t seem to do anything right this year. Hopefully, I’ll see them both.

But what is February, if not 2021 persevering?

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WandaVision’s penultimate episode, and one particular quote from it, has been the talk of the town lately (or: the argument of the weekend on Twitter), but here we can set aside such concerns (I mean, I’ve got a whole post with a WandaVision review in it if you did want to get into it) and just look back at all the films I watched in February 2021…


#27 Weird Woman (1944)
#28 Coming to America (1988)
#29 The Burning Buddha Man (2013), aka Moeru butsuzô ningen
#30 High Life (2018)
#31 When the Wind Blows (1986)
#32 Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
#33 The Dig (2021)
#34 Isn’t It Romantic (2019)
#35 The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), aka Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed
#36 Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
#37 Tangerines (2013), aka Mandariinid
#38 The White Tiger (2021)
#39 Shakespeare in Love (1998)
#40 The Last Warning (1928)
#41 Mortal Kombat (1995)
#42 The Guilty (2018), aka Den skyldige
#43 The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
#44 The House of Fear (1939)
#45 Muse: Simulation Theory (2020)
#46 News of the World (2020)
#47 The ’Burbs (1989)
#48 Xchange (2001)
#49 Vampyr (1932)
#50 Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
#51 Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983), aka Shu Shan – Xin Shu shan jian ke
#52 Radioactive (2019)
#53 Frankenstein (1931)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The Last Warning

The Quatermass Xperiment

Frankenstein

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  • I watched 27 new feature films in February.
  • That puts it in the top 10 months of all time, in 10th place — the exact same feat January only just managed (so January is now pushed out to 11th, obv).
  • It’s the best February ever, topping 2014’s 24, and is far past the February average (previously 13.2, now 14.2), as well as the rolling average for the last 12 months (previously 23.2, now 23.9), and sets the average for 2021 so far at 26.5.
  • In terms of yearly milestones, I passed both #30 (the quarter-way point of my current 120-film goal) at the earliest time ever (4th February, beating 13th February in 2016), and #50 (the halfway point of my eponymous goal), also at the earliest ever (beating 2016’s 6th March). And #53 is the furthest I’ve ever reached by the end of February, surpassing #44 from (when else) 2016. (2016 wasn’t my best year ever, just a fast starter, so if I keep this up then at some point it’s going to be different year(s) that I’m passing.)
  • Last March I commented on how many letters of the alphabet I’d ticked off — seven in January, eight in February, nine in March. Of the two remaining, I never did get to X. Well, this year I’ve finished all 26 before the end of February. In fairness, that’s because I noticed how well I’d done in January — 15! — and made a point of finishing it off. But it’s also a side effect of watching so many films so much earlier. If I looked at other years up to around the 50-film mark, whenever that was reached, perhaps I’d find those too had hit most/all letters.
  • It’s not something I mention often, but as February began I was in the middle of watching or rewatching 23 film series. That’s quite a few — I certainly wasn’t looking to add any more to the list. But sometimes you just fancy watching a ’70s big-screen spin-off of a ’60s sci-fi TV series, or a big-screen remake of a ’50s British serial, or a classic Universal horror movie. And now I’m up to 26 series underway. (I track which I’m watching via the one I need to watch next on Letterboxd here, if you’re interested.)
  • This month’s Blindspot film: the classic Universal adaptation of Frankenstein. It’s only 70 minutes long, and I always try to save such shorter films on my list for later in the year, just in case for some reason I really need ones I can easily squeeze in; but sometimes you just have to accept that, although you don’t need a 70-minuter you can easily squeeze in, that’s all you want. Also, it paired quite nicely with The Last Warning, which (as I learnt from the audio commentary on the Masters of Cinema Blu-ray) was one of the films that was essentially the forebear to Universal’s famed horror cycle.
  • Talking of The Last Warning, at #44 is The House of Fear — not the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film (I reviewed that here), but a remake of The Last Warning that used the title of the original novel (that was then reused for the Holmes film — Universal were terrible for that in the ’30s and ’40s, apparently).
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Dig, The Guilty, High Life, Weird Woman, and The White Tiger.



The 69th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
This month, I boldly went where I’ve never gone before and started the Star Trek movie series from the beginning. Star Trek: The Motion Picture has never had a particularly good rep, but you’ve gotta start at the start, right? So it was a pleasant surprise when I really enjoyed it — to the point where I gave it five stars and a heart-thing on Letterboxd. I nearly didn’t go so high, because Wrath of Khan is “the best one” and now I’ve got nowhere to go if I do like it even more; but I don’t think you can go around rating films on that basis (you’d never give anything full marks just in case there was ever anything better), so…

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This month ended on a bit of a downer, with a run of films that didn’t live up to my hopes and expectations. Nonetheless, they weren’t as outright bad as some I watched earlier in the month — like Mortal Kombat, which was supposedly a mid-’90s blockbuster but actually looked like a mid-’90s syndicated TV series, with writing, acting, and fight choreography of a similar or lesser quality.

Most Recent Best Picture Winner I Hadn’t Seen of the Month
Shakespeare in Love is the only Oscar Best Picture winner from the last 30 years that I hadn’t seen. Hurrah! Now that I’ve ticked that one off, my oldest unseen is 1988’s Rain Man, which is helpfully on this year’s Blindspot list. After that, I’ll slip back just one year further, to 1987’s The Last Emperor. Indeed, my track record with ’80s winners isn’t great: I’ve seen more from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s (plus, obviously, the ’90s, ’00s, and ’10s). Well, I’ll tick ’em all off someday.

Film Just Barely on the IMDb Top 250 of the Month
When I watched it, Tangerines was the 249th film on the IMDb Top 250. It’s not there now, but it might be again tomorrow — those ones near the end are very volatile; a handful of films that switch places back and forth, jumping on and off the list, on a regular basis. So why focus any viewing efforts there? After all, eventually they’re certain to drop off when something darts in higher up (even in a movie-poor year like 2020, two films made it onto the Top 250; there are eight from 2019). Well, I feel like once these movies do definitively drop off the list, they’re liable to become a bit forgotten. Not all of them, obviously — films in the “danger zone” like Three Colours Red or It Happened One Night have enough cache to keep them talked about for other reasons — but smaller, often foreign films like Tangerines are liable to just slip away. And, in theory, they’re still great films. I mean, they may disappear from the top 250, but they’re still theoretically among the top 260, or 275, or 300 (etc), greatest films ever made. But then they won’t be on a list, so I won’t think to watch them — so better to do it now, right?

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Although it only went live early yesterday evening, my 67th TV column still managed to storm past all last month’s film reviews to by February’s most-viewed post. (A distant second, with almost exactly half as many hits, was my review of Muse: Simulation Theory — which had also been on TV. Really, TV’s the game to be in if you want those page views.)



My Rewatchathon was right on pace this month, although that means I still have to catch up for last month’s shortfall.

#3 Frozen 3D (2013)
#4 The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), aka Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed
#5 Crocodile Dundee II (1988)
#6 Apollo 13 (1995)

In a rare (I think probably unique) feat, The Adventuress of Prince Achmed is both 2021’s #35 and Rewatchathon 2021’s #4. This isn’t just because I enjoyed it so much (although it is very good), but because the BFI Blu-ray has a choice of soundtracks: the original 1926 musical score, or an English voiceover narration, recorded in 2013 but based on director Lotte Reiniger’s own English translation of her original German text. I watched them in that order, and felt the narration added nothing of value to the experience, especially as it sounds like it comes from a preschool storybook. Just stick to the original music.

As for the others, I rewatched Frozen in readiness to finally watch Frozen II sometime soon (though I didn’t get round to it this month, did I). I hadn’t seen it in 3D before; the effect was solid but surprisingly low-key, although it took off anytime it snowed, etc. If you want some idea of when that “sometime soon” for the sequel might be, look to Crocodile Dundee II, which I’ve been meaning to watch since I enjoyed a rewatch of the first one… in March 2019. I’m sure I watched it as a kid (hence why it’s a rewatch), but I didn’t remember a second of it — probably because it’s a rather perfunctory sequel; kinda slow and lacking most of the charm of the original.

Finally, Apollo 13 completed a mini Tom Hanks kick, as I watched it immediately after News of the World and The ’Burbs. It’s a great movie — indeed, I had a little word with Letterboxd about how it’s not getting the kind of ratings it deserves.


At one point this month Twitter was all over new comedy Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, but as a premium VOD release it’s £14 and I’m not paying that to rent anything, thanks. Also going straight to rental was the latest Nic Cage craziness, Willy’s Wonderland, although at a normal rental price. Mixed reviews put me off so far, though. I did rent David Byrne’s American Utopia (on offer from Amazon), so that’ll be in next month’s viewing, and I was going to fork out for the interesting-looking documentary A Glitch in the Matrix until I saw a raft of negative reactions.

The streamers continued to throw out brand-new exclusives, with Netflix’s Malcolm & Marie probably the most talked-about this month. It sounds irritating, to be honest, whereas Korean sci-fi Space Sweepers is probably more in my lane. Over on Amazon, Gerard Butler disaster flick Greenland, Rosamund Pike’s Golden Globe-winning I Care a Lot, and Bliss, starring Owen Wilson/Salma Hayek in a sci-fi romance from the writer/director of Another Earth, all made my watchlist but didn’t actually grab my viewing time. The same is true of teen time loop romcom The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, which feels a bit like a placeholder before Palm Springs‘ belated UK release in April.

Talking of stuff finally making it to the UK, Netflix added Josh Trank’s Capone this week, so that can go on my watchlist out of curiosity but never actually get got to because it’s meant to be rubbish. More in my lane, perhaps, is Cold War thriller The Catcher Was a Spy, which apparently came out in 2018, but not here in the UK, where it’s just popped up as an Amazon Original. Going even older, Netflix added a mass load of Swedish films this month, including three silents — Terje Vigen, Ingeborg Holm, and Herr Arnes Pengar — that are all in IMDb’s Top 50 for the 1910s, so that’s interesting. Meanwhile, Amazon added 2013 Jason Statham actioner Homefront, which came onto Netflix US last month and shot to #1, despite being a flop on its theatrical release. I do like a bit of Statham action now and then, and this one comes recommended, so it’s probably worth a shout at some point. Another discovery was The Grand Heist — the kind of film I only hear of when it randomly pops up on a streamer or whatever, this Korean flick appears to be a period Ocean’s 11 about stealing ice… literally, blocks of ice. Sounds like it might be fun.

My cheap MUBI subscription is still going, but even with a new title everyday they managed to add little this month that caught my interest — just Cathy Yan’s feature debut, Dead Pigs, and Ridley Scott’s Legend, which is usually on Amazon Prime anyway; plus a few titles I own on disc anyway (The African Queen, Heat, and The King of Comedy, the latter two of which I’ve seen but are long overdue a rewatch). This month’s BBC TV premiere of Stan & Ollie means that’s now on iPlayer, although it’s also still on Prime, where it’ll be in higher quality; and on All 4 I managed to miss my chance to watch Love, Simon (its spin-off series is now on Disney+ but not, apparently, the original film) and Song Kang-ho in A Taxi Driver.

Finally, my disc purchases continued unabated. There was the release of Indicator’s second Columbia Noir set — I haven’t started the first yet, so that’s 12 minor-league noirs for me to catch up on now. Other new releases included a lavish edition of Jackie Chan classic The Young Master, restored with a choice of three different cuts, and Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death, with a choice of two cuts, only one restored. But it was sales and random discounts where people really got me: from Arrow’s 30th anniversary sale, I picked up The Apartment, Horror Express, and Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway; from a BFI offer at HMV, I scooped up the original British Gaslight, Penda’s Fen, Ian McKellen’s Richard III, That Sinking Feeling, The Wages of Fear, and their four-film Hirokazu Koreeda box set; and I also got Ken Russell’s The Devils on offer on DVD from elsewhere.

Physical media fans will surely have noticed that Zoom changed hands this week. The new owners haven’t got their version fully up and running yet, so it remains to be seen if they’ll ruin one of the best Blu-ray retailers there was. Just before they shut down, I managed to get in one final Criterion gift card order — if you missed it’s existence, sorry to tell you now, but they sold a Criterion gift card for £50 that allowed you four titles (from a selected list). That works out at £12.50 each, which was a bargain, and because it’s been a while since I looked they had plenty in their selection that I wanted. So I snaffled up The Age of Innocence, Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman, The Cranes Are Flying, and Three Outlaw Samurai, but I could’ve chosen another four easily, maybe even eight — if I’d known for sure Zoom-as-we-knew-it was going away, I might’ve put up the extra £50, but hey-ho.


It’s gonna be a monstrous March with Godzilla vs. Kong. Whoever wins, we win, I reckon.

The So Metaphorical Monthly Review of February 2020

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A busy weekend means this post is later than normal. As for the title, yeah, I saw Parasite. (I highlight that just so you don’t go expecting any actual metaphors later in this post.)

Also, as I write this I’ve realised Parasite is the first Best Picture winner I’ve actually seen at the cinema since, of all things, Crash. And the only other one is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. What an elite club to be a member of…


#13 Booksmart (2019)
#14 The Nightingale (2018)
#15 Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)
#16 Tag (2018)
#17 Shoplifters (2018), aka Manbiki kazoku
#18 A Star Is Born (2018)
#19 Blockers (2018)
#20 Emma. (2020)
#21 Yesterday (2019)
#21a The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983)
#22 Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983)
#23 Us (2019)
#24 Escape Room (2019)
#25 The Equalizer 2 (2018)
#26 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
#27 Mary Poppins Returns (2018)
#28 Parasite (2019), aka Gisaengchung
#29 Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
#30 Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

All Quiet on the Western Front

Parasite

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  • So, I watched 18 new feature films in February.
  • That makes it the best month of 2020 so far. Okay, it only had one to beat, so, looking further afield, it’s the best month since last August.
  • It also surpasses February’s average (previously 12.83, now 13.2) and the rolling average of the last 12 months (previously 12.75, now… 12.75, because I also watched 18 films last February. Fancy that).
  • Passing #25 means I’ve passed the quarter-way point already. But the last time I didn’t get there in February was 2014 (when it took until April), so it’s not that noteworthy an achievement. Especially as, since last year, I’m meant to be aiming for 120+ films in year.
  • But, good news, I’ve reached the quarter-way mark for 120, too! Ending February at #30 means so far I’m behind 2016 and 2018, but marginally ahead of 2015, 2017, and 2019.
  • Lots of 2018 films this month — to be precise, nine of them, or 50% of my viewing. That’s because I’m making use of my annual month of Now TV / Sky Cinema to catch up on some misses, and as they get a lot of recent stuff first, currently that means it’s mainly 2018 misses with a smattering from 2019 (overall, 61% of this month’s viewing was via Now TV).
  • Monty Python aficionados may have observed that I’ve chosen to list The Crimson Permanent Assurance separately from The Meaning of Life. It’s commonly presented as part of the film these days, but even then it’s still separated from the main feature. It was independently nominated for a BAFTA back in the day, too, so it sort of is part of the film and sort of isn’t. And anyway, while we can argue whether it counts as a standalone work or not, the fact it’s a short means I don’t give it a full number, so even if you do disapprove of listing it separately, at least it doesn’t affect my count for the year.
  • This month’s Blindspot film: anti-war WW1 classic, and early Best Picture Oscar winner (so an apt choice for this month), All Quiet on the Western Front.
  • As best I can tell, All Quiet on the Western Front is the only film I’ve ever seen from 1930. That’s noteworthy because the only other year since talkies came along for which this is true is 1932. Quite how I’ve ‘missed’ those two years, who knows. (If we go back into the silent era, there’s still only a few more years I’ve missed; but, as we’re talking about years with feature films, it gets a little more complicated for that period.)
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Booksmart, The Nightingale, and Yesterday.



The 57th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
This month’s viewing includes the most recent winner of the Palme d’Or, the first-ever non-English-language film to win the Oscar for Best Picture, and the movie Letterboxd users have rated the #1 of all time… all of which epithets describe the same film, of course: Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite. It’s an awful lot of pressure to put on a film the first time you watch it. I thought it was great, but how great I’m not sure. So a clearer pick here is All Quiet on the Western Front, another Best Picture winner that has stood the test of time — 90 years and counting.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
In contrast to such greatness, there was plenty of choice for the weakest movie this month. On balance, I think the dishonour belongs to Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again — even by the lowly standards set by the first movie, this follow-up is a mess.

Big Name Star Popping In Near the End of a Crummy Musical for a Couple of Minutes to Sing Part of a Song or Two …of the Month
By coincidence and the vagaries of fate, I saw Meryl Streep do this twice this month. Both were in films released in 2018, so this recognition only comes 14 months late.

Best Musical Number of the Month
They may’ve lavished A Star Is Born and Mary Poppins Returns and Mamma Mia 2 with money and star power and all the tricks of modern moviemaking, but the best song-and-dance number I saw this month remains Monty Python’s Every Sperm is Sacred.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
No doubt bolstered by its BAFTA wins and predicted (but unmaterialising) Oscar glory, this month’s top new post was 1917.



With an end goal of 50 in mind, my Rewatchathon stays on course this month…

#6 Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)
#7 Christopher Robin (2018)
#8 The Karate Kid (1984)

I still quite like Christopher Robin. Yeah, it’s just the plot of Mary Poppins remade with Winnie the Pooh, but I like Pooh bear a lot so that doesn’t bother me too much.

Some thoughts on The Karate Kid on Letterboxd, and I intend to do a ‘Guide To’ post for it some day — mainly because I enjoyed it enough that I’m intending to watch the sequels, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen, so I’ll number and review them as new films.


Normally I start this section with all the films I missed on the big screen, but the big news nowadays is surely Netflix’s rollout of Studio Ghibli’s back catalogue (seven last month, seven today, the final seven on April 1st). The ones I hadn’t already seen, and still haven’t, from their February lot are Kiki’s Delivery Service (which I own on Blu-ray anyway), Ocean Waves, Only Yesterday, Porco Rosso, and Tales from Earthsea. Also new to Netflix and on my radar last month were Lady Bird, Hostiles, Proud Mary, and Year One (which I only notice because it was on my ‘50 unseen’ in 2009). One of their originals caught my eye, too: The Coldest Game. Sounded like a genre that’s up my street, but that’s literally all I know about it. Considering the variable quality of Netflix originals, the fact no one seems to be talking about it probably doesn’t bode well.

Over on Amazon Prime, higher profile additions this month include Emma Thompson comedy Late Night and Luc Besson actioner Anna. Also drawing my attention was Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina, returning to the streamer after five years away (that’s another from an old ‘50 unseen’ list); Super Size Me 2, the much-less-talked about sequel to the much-talked-about documentary; Anthony Hopkins / Ryan Gosling thriller Fracture (a film I was just about aware existed but had ignored; but, in the sea of mediocrity that’s added to Amazon, that recognition was enough to make me read the blurb and note the decent score it holds on IMDb); and Spy Game, which I’ve seen (it’s in my 100 Favourites, even), but only own on DVD, so here’s my chance to rewatch it in HD.

And, as I mentioned, I’ve currently got Now TV for a little bit yet, so some of the stuff I’d particularly like to catch on there includes Burning, The Kid Who Would Be King, The Wedding Guest, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Crazy Rich Asians, and Mary Queen of Scots. Plus, all the Karate Kid sequels. And, drawing my attention away from that limited-time offering to something else I’ve paid for, I’ve got rentals of Hustlers and Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw that expire in March (both of those were on my most recent ‘50 unseen’, incidentally).

Away from the internet, I got a bit carried away with Blu-ray purchases this month — there are 16 I could list here. Top of the pops is Joker. Also, Criterion’s release of Roma, which I got more for the special features than the film itself (because I can watch the latter on Netflix in UHD). Also on the rewatch list were Gods of Egypt in 3D (like I said would happen); one of my favourites from last year, Searching, which I got new for just a couple of quid; and Phantom Thread, which I also mentioned last month when it came to Netflix, but I finally got on UHD disc (in a two-for-one with Angel Heart). But the biggest single chunk belongs to 88 Films release of Jackie Chan titles, of which I picked up six this month, including four in a sale (Battle Creek Brawl, Dragon Fist, Snake & Crane Arts of Shaolin, and To Kill with Intrigue) and two newer releases (Crime Story and The Protector).

Finally, ending where I normally begin, the stuff I missed on the big screen. I nearly went to see Birds of Prey, but I’ll surely buy it for my disc collection eventually so I decided to save the money and wait. I’ve already pre-ordered The Lighthouse, which didn’t come to my local at all. I was never likely to bother with Dolittle or Sonic the Hedgehog, though I’m sure I’ll catch them on streaming sometime. I’m less sure about The Call of the Wild, thanks to that terrible looking CG dog. I’m all for using effects for stunts and stuff, but when it’s also in regular scenes interacting with humans, it just looks fake. Finally, The Invisible Man just came out to strong reviews. I don’t normally bother with horror on the big screen (I prefer to get scared in the secrecy of my own home, thanks), but I’m tempted to make an exception.


More ticking off misses from 2018/19 courtesy of Sky Cinema. Cinema trips seem unlikely (maybe for Mulan), with my attention on the month after and the return of Britain’s best-known secret agent.

The Random Mid-Monthly Review for Valentine’s Day 2020

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Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I’m a blogger not a poet,
Though I did do a Creative Writing degree with a poetry component, which I don’t think I was the greatest at, but, you know, not all poetry has to rhyme…
But it’s better when it do.

Hello, dear readers. It’s been a while since my last post, but I don’t have any reviews banked ready to go, so here’s a random mid-month update. (Normally the 14th would be right smack in the middle of February, but of course I would end up doing this on a leap year. Still, it’s near enough.)

How you doing? You good? Awesome.

Me? Well, after the back half of last year was sent into relative disarray by house moves and whatnot (just look at this graph from my 2019 statistics to see how up-and-down the year was from June onwards), 2020 is off to a similarly bumpy beginning as I spend my time hunting around for a new job. Also, more directly related to film viewing, much of my DVD/Blu-ray collection remains in boxes as we shelve out The Library. Oh yes, I’m going to have a DVD/Blu-ray library. (Photos when it’s done, I’m sure.) Not that there’s a shortage of stuff I could be watching, what with Netflix and Amazon Prime; plus I currently have Now TV (for the Oscars); and there’s always new releases, both at home and at the cinema (my local is finally screening Parasite from today (hurrah for its Oscar win!), so I really ought to make the effort to see that).

A normal monthly review would have a list of things I’d been watching, of course, but I’ll save that for the proper one. But, talking of Oscar-y recent films I still haven’t seen, the Joker Blu-ray has been sat right next to me all week, waiting (I’ve been focusing on trying to get value for money out of that month of Now TV. I don’t think I have, yet). But, as mooted in my last TV review, I have finally got round to Good Omens. Gotta be honest, I’m not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I think that might be a case of too high expectations on my part, though. It’s still good, mind — I’d recommend it. Anyway, there’ll be more about that in the next TV column.

Overall, my film viewing tally currently places this February as my worst month since April 2010. That’s very nearly an entire decade ago, people! Fortunately, there’s still half (and a bit) of the month to go yet…