Tag Archives: film

The Steamy Monthly Review of September 2025

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Ooh, saucy…

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

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



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

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


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



The 124th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

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

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


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

August’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.

Flavour of the month at the cinema was definitely the Liam Neeson-starring reboot of The Naked Gun. There was every reason to be dubious of this as an undertaking, but most of what I’ve read regarded it as a triumph. It’s not the kind of film I’ll rush to buy on disc (not that that’s any guarantee I’ll watch something quickly, as this column attests to every month), but I’m looking forward to it landing on streaming.

I’ve also got a general impression (because I just don’t read much new criticism in depth these days) that Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck is rather good, while horror Weapons and Ari Aster’s latest, Eddington, seem to have been divisive. That might be better than the net zero I’ve heard about Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing, although that did only just come out and I’ve been busy lately. The consensus I garnered about Nobody 2 was it’s the kind of sequel that’s fundamentally more of the same, but the first one was pretty fun so that sounds alright to me. Certainly better than Materialists, which it felt like the whole internet was lambasting when it came out in the US the other month. Also out was belated (legacy?) sequel Freakier Friday, which I feel compelled to mention but not compelled to watch.

Meanwhile, breaking containment from the largely-online world of modern moviedom, I feel like I’ve seen The Roses all over the place in The Real World. It’s made me realise how weird that feels for a film nowadays; like they’ve given up on targeting Regular People and are just happy with the guaranteed crowd. Or maybe I just don’t look in the right places and The Roses has been ubiquitous. I mean, it does star Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, who are both mainstream darlings (not undeservedly) in the UK. If anything’s going to tempt out your not-a-regular-moviegoer, that’s a combo worth pushing.

The opposite of advertised has been KPop Demon Hunters. Yes, that’s how it’s spelt, despite K-pop being spelt, well, “K-pop” and the logo kinda having a hyphen in it too. (I get that most people don’t care about this kind of thing. I do, though.) It came out months ago but I didn’t mention it because it’s not my kind of thing; seemingly just another CG-animated kids’ movie dumped on Netflix, of which there seem to be dozens every year. Whether this one is actually good or just hit the right spot at the right time, I don’t know, but it’s become a bit of a phenomenon. Just this past weekend, it claimed the crown of the most-watched movie on Netflix ever, while the weekend before the limited theatrical release of a singalong version won the box office in the US, another first for a Netflix film. I’m tempted to watch it to see what all the fuss is about. Stranger films than this have turned out to actually be good.

Comparatively, August’s new streaming offers are underwhelming. On Netflix: thriller Night Always Comes starring Vanessa Kirby, which has all of 55% on Rotten Tomatoes; and a new original animation from Genndy Tartakovsky, who once attracted cult-following-ish levels of esteem for work like Samurai Jack and the 2D Star Wars: Clone Wars series, but has now made Fixed, an adult-orientated comedy about a dog about to be neutered. That’s amassed 58%, at least. Mind you, those are figures Prime Video might be glad of, considering their action-comedy The Pickup with Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson sits on 25%. (I don’t put much stock in Rotten Tomatoes generally, but these scores at least indicate the dismal state of things.) Sitting between the two is Disney+’s heist thriller starring Samara Weaving, Eenie Meanie, with 44%. Now, that’s not great, but also it’s a heist thriller starring Samara Weaving, so I’m prepared to overlook the fact it might not be very good.

Perhaps of more note were films that started a subscription streaming stretch — an emphasis on sibilance there because, for whatever reason, most of the ones joining Sky Cinema / NOW seemed to start with an S: Saturday Night, September 5, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and The Surfer. Also Heart Eyes, because I guess something had to buck the trend. And The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, but as I own that on disc I class it as a different type of failure. Prime Video also had a share of newcomers, including Babygirl, Mark Wahlberg vehicle Flight Risk, Stephen King adaptation The Monkey, Luc Besson’s Dogman, and the Ultimate Cut of Caligula. Several more films did the ol’ service shuffle, with Meg 2: The Trench leaving Sky for Prime, The Iron Claw leaving Prime for Netflix, and Five Nights at Freddy’s joining Netflix from Sky.

As usual, other back catalogue additions reminded me of all the stuff I’ve bought on disc but not watched yet, whether that be films I’ve never seen — like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hackers, In the Heat of the Night, The Northman, or Now, Voyager (quite a spread of types and eras, which is nice to see) — or films I’ve seen before but own in shiny newer editions I’ve not yet played — like Collateral, Ex Machina, Galaxy Quest, The Godfather trilogy, Psycho, or Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Both of those lists are just a sampling, because (as we know) I buy far too much stuff.

And, naturally, I bought even more this month. That said, the stack is looking a little shorter than usual. Whether that’s a result of less interesting stuff coming out, or I’ve finally demonstrated some restraint, I’m not sure. Either way, I definitely wasn’t going to miss out on shiny new 4K UHD releases of all-timers like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Sunset Boulevard, as well as films I feel there’s a strong chance I’m going to enjoy, like Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress and Michael Mann’s Thief. Rounding out the 4K selection was one of Radiance’s first forays into the format, French police noir The Inquisitor, which is paired with an HD copy of a similar work by the same director, Deadly Circuit, for extra value.

Also from the Radiance stable was a trio of ninja action in their second volume of Shinobi films. I also picked up a slightly-random threesome of titles in Indicator’s sale earlier in the month, namely their two-film El Vampiro set, plus Western Geronimo: An American Legend and WW2 epic Midway. Throw in a couple of Kickstarter rewards — silent documentary An Aleutian Adventure and Hal Hartley’s new film, Where to Land — and… that’s it. Yes, really. But lest you think I’m breaking my habit, know that I’ve already got stuff in the post that will surely feature here next month.

The August Monthly Review Club

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

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

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



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

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


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



The 123rd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

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

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


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

July’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.

Plenty of blockbusters hitting the good old summer release window this month, starting with Jurassic World Rebirth (I’d intended to use that as a prompt to finally get round to the previous Jurassic film, Dominion, but failed at that too), and continuing with outings from both major superhero houses: James Gunn’s Superman kicking off a new era for DC on the big screen, and Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps hoping to make people stop proclaiming the slow death of the MCU (as if the flood of news articles related to the next Avengers film still not having a screenplay, despite being deep into principal photography, hasn’t kept that up anyway. Maybe Marvel Studios should learn to make films properly).

Filling screens here and there between those big gun(n)s: a new David Cronenberg, The Shrouds; horror reboot I Know What You Did Last Summer; animated sequel The Bad Guys 2; and yet another attempt (goodness knows why) to turn the Smurfs into a viable franchise in the simply-titled Smurfs. The films in the first paragraph might’ve tempted me to actually get out to the cinema for once (if I hadn’t been so busy elsewhere), but this lot? Ha. (Okay, Cronenberg will make my to-see list eventually, but as a sometime scaredy-cat I prefer horror in the privacy of my own living room.)

One film that didn’t set the box office alight was belated Adam Sandler sequel Happy Gilmore 2 — because it went direct to Netflix, where it became their biggest opening ever (at least in the US), and thus proved they probably should’ve done a theatrical release instead of leaving all that money on the table. Will they ever learn? No, demonstrably not. I’m not a Sandler fan, and consequently I’ve never seen the first Happy Gilmore, so I’ve no plans to watch this new one. I hope his fans enjoyed it. I did watch the first The Old Guard however many years ago, though, and the not-as-belated-but-still-tardy sequel to that also turned up this month, imaginatively titled The Old Guard 2. I’m not sure I care enough to take the time, to be honest, especially as reviews have been less than stellar, and apparently it contains a bunch of setup for a third film that may never happen.

The only other direct-to-streaming premiere I noted in July was an even more bizarre choice: on Prime Video, a new version of War of the Worlds — yes, another one — but this time apparently crossed with Searching, because it’s all from the perspective of Ice Cube watching the alien invasion unfurl on his computer. I guess maybe they were trying to go for a modernised version of Orson Welles’s famous radio broadcast? I don’t know. I haven’t even got round to watching the BBC miniseries version from a few years ago, which at least was interesting for trying to do it properly as a Victorian period piece, so I very much doubt the Ice Cube version will be hitting my screen anytime soon.

While the other streamers didn’t bother to offer much brand-new, a few relatively big hitters made their subscription streaming bows, including the viral success (if not a box office one) that was Robbie Williams biopic Better Man (you know, the one where he’s played be a CGI monkey), which also came to Prime; Disney+ did their usual speedy cinema-to-streaming pipeline with spy thriller The Amateur; Netflix offered nonlinear rom-dram We Live in Time; and Sky Cinema / NOW fared best, as usual, magicking up Wicked (aka Wicked: Part I), Clint Eastwood’s well-reviewed courtroom thriller Juror #2, and, um, Kraven the Hunter. Hey, can’t win ’em all. And, heck, they also had even less noteworthy stuff than that, so it could be (indeed, was) worse. I mean, Rumours sounds kinda interesting, but its audience scores are terrible… though IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes voters are exceptionally dumb nowadays, so maybe that 75% critic score is worth bearing in mind.

Crappy recent superhero movies also feature in back catalogue changes. Well, where don’t they nowadays? Morbius — a Spider-verse spin-off even more poorly regarded than Kraven — popped onto Amazon; as did The Flash, reminding me that I have an itch to watch it even though it’s meant to be poor and everything I’ve seen from it looks shit. I was going to say that at least it would allow me to close out that era of DC’s cinematic universe, but I still haven’t watched Wonder Woman 1984 or Aquaman and the Forgettable Sequel Subtitle either. Other stuff of note on Prime included Trumbo, which never especially interested me before, but I’ve just been reading a book on the history of the Oscars which told some of his story so now I think maybe. It goes on the list, anyway. Same for Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which was So Good back when it first came out (I ranked it 4th for films I first saw in 2017, which was a hotly contested year), but after almost a further decade of Taika Waititi’s schtick, I wonder if it still plays as well? Talking of rewatches, Amazon also threw up Blade Runner: The Final Cut, a reminder that it was one of the earliest 4K discs I bought but I still haven’t watched that, and The Hobbit trilogy, a reminder that I own them in 3D but have never watched those copies, and it’s been a while since I watched them at all so maybe they deserve another look.

Over on Netflix, the “I should give that another look” theme continues with Forrest Gump, which I haven’t seen since I was a kid and should probably form an adult opinion on; plus more reminders of discs I bought with enthusiasm but still haven’t watched, like Heat and Minority Report (I don’t even want to look up how long ago the Blu-ray I haven’t watched came out. It’ll be on 4K before you know it). Similarly, though not actually a rewatch, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes — I really enjoyed the original trilogy quartet, and this prequel seemed to be well received (certainly successful enough that they’re immediately adapting the next book in the Hunger Games universe), so I ought to get on that too. In terms of stuff I don’t already own on disc, BlackBerry seems like it should be meritless attempt to engineer another Social Network / Steve Jobs kinda film, but I hear it’s actually good whenever it comes up.

iPlayer has a similar injection of quality with Cannes winner Fallen Leaves and Oscar nominee Women Talking, although most of my list of interest there are more reminders of unwatched discs: All the President’s Men, Don’t Look Now, and Spellbound for just three I’ve never seen; plus plenty to rewatch, like my 4K copies of the Back to the Future trilogy, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, The Searchers, and The Wicker Man. Heck, even MUBI — who seem to primarily deal in films I’ve not even heard of — reminded me I own Irreversible and Peeping Tom.

Okay, enough about discs I already own that I haven’t watched — what about all the new stuff I’ve bought to add to that never-ending kevyip? After receiving a large amount of praise and success at the box office earlier this year, and then seeing plenty of love for the quality of its 4K disc release online, of course I immediately blind-bought Sinners — it’s got variable IMAX aspect ratio, I was never not likely to miss it! That’s the only shiny new film on my list this month, although there were a good few back catalogue 4Ks: the latest in Hammer’s lavish collector’s edition range, Quatermass 2 (sadly, it sounds like rights issues mean we won’t be getting a matching version of Quatermass and the Pit anytime soon); a similarly extravagant reissue of Akira Kurosawa’s Ran; and, just arrived, a ludicrously chunky box set for a film previously relegated to the status of “special feature”, Apocalypse Now making-of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. Yes, I bought that, despite already owning in two copies in my two copies of Apocalypse Now. It wasn’t just for the 4K restoration: it also comes with a bunch of special features, and a physical copy of Eleanor Coppola’s behind-the-scenes book Notes, which I don’t already own. Whether that package was worth the asking price, I’m not sure, but I still paid it, so…

More UHD discs: from 88 Films, Lucio Fulci’s giallo Murder Rock (aka Murderock, aka Murder-Rock: Dancing Death), along with a regular 1080p reissue of vampire giallo Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye; from Arrow’s recent sale, Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill and Sam Raimi’s The Gift; and I imported a pile of Deaf Crocodile animation releases, led by “German adult animated psychological horror mystery” but starring cats (yes, really) Felidae and French post-apocalyptic adventure Gwen and the Book of Sand; plus, in good ol’ 1080p, Hungarian epic The Tragedy of Man and the sci-fi-focused Treasures of Soviet Animation Vol. 1 (apparently there are at least six volumes of that coming. I’m going to end up getting them all, aren’t I?)

In terms of home-grown boutique labels, I am actually trying to cut back a bit (a bit), so there was just one title from Eureka this time out: German-made Western The Sons of Great Bear. Immediately belying the idea I’m in any way cutting back, Radiance dominated the month with a selection of both new releases — The Beast to Die (which has an all-timer cover, as well as sounding like a good film) and World Noir Vol. 3 (I ought to make a start on those sets… but then, that’s true of so many box set series I own) — and a pile of pickups from their sale: Dogra Magra, Mississippi Mermaid, A Quiet Place in the Country, The Story of Adele H., Tchao Pantin, and What Happened Was….

What happened was… I spent way too much on discs again. Maybe one day I’ll stop doing that. But not this month. (Not next month either, as we shall see in 31 days’ time.)

Live Like a Month, Die Like the Review of July 2025

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If you’re wondering what the hell that title is supposed to mean, the only explanation I can offer is to see #61 below. Other than that, yeah, it’s meaningless. Such is life sometimes, my friends.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#59 Heads of State (2025) — New Film #7
#60 The Invisible Swordsman (1970) — Failure #7
#61 Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976) — Genre #5
#62 Stargate (1994) — Rewatch #7
#63 The Wolf Man (1941) — WDYMYHS #7
#64 The Notebook (2004) — Blindspot #7


  • I watched six feature films I’d never seen before in July.
  • That’s the first time I’ve failed to reach my minimum monthly target of ten films since November 2023 (at least back then I had a Doctor Who-shaped excuse). Sadly, that means this ends a run of 10+ months that isn’t even my second-longest (this time I reached 19 months, but I hit 21 in 2020/2021, and my record is 60 from 2014–2019). I’m doubtful August will go too well either, but we’ll see.
  • Five of those six counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • That’s slightly above my minimum monthly requirement of five, but behind the average need to reach 100 (which is eight). Of course, thanks to bumper months earlier in the year, I’m still well ahead of target overall — to stay on pace, I only need to reach #58 by the end of July, and I got there last month.
  • I watched the extended cut of Stargate, which I’ve never seen before, but the additions are minor enough that it isn’t worth counting as ‘new’; especially as I haven’t seen it for the best part of 30 years, so I didn’t notice any changes myself, only read about them online.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Nicholas Sparks-based romantic weepy The Notebook.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was classic Universal horror The Wolf Man.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Invisible Swordsman and finally rewatched Stargate.



The 122nd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing spectacular this month; indeed, the highest star rating I gave on Letterboxd to a first-time watch was 3½ — hardly a ringing endorsement. I handed that out to two films, both of which were underwhelming or flawed in some ways, but entertaining in others — the latter elevating them above 3 stars, but the former preventing them from hitting the giddy heights of 4 stars. It’s basically a coin toss which I preferred, so because it has a much cooler title I’ll pick Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man. (The other was Heads of State, by-the-way.)

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I felt disappointed by two films in particular this month, so the question is: which was worse? That’s got to be The Wolf Man, which I’ve been meaning to watch for many years and hoped would be up to the high standards of the other classic Universal monster movies, but I found it to be riddled with faults. Shame. (The other was The Invisible Swordsman, which I’d never heard of before Arrow announced their Blu-ray earlier this year, so it was much less long-awaited.)


As I said earlier, I suspect August will turn out to be another below-par month — but you never know. Still, I’m glad I’ve built up a significant lead on my Challenge, because it means even if I just watch the ‘required’ five films (new film, rewatch, failure, Blindspot, and WDYMYHS), I’ll still end the month ahead of target pace.

June’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.

The award for “film that almost tempted me to the cinema” this month goes to F1 — or F1: The Movie, as it may or may not be known now (websites seem to keep changing their mind). I don’t expect it to be a Great Film, but I figure it probably benefits from being seen big ‘n’ loud. Maybe I’ll still go, who knows, but with July’s films already bearing down on us (the new Jurassic World is out already, and Superman is imminent) the “big” part of “big ‘n’ loud” already has its days numbered.

Close second goes to another film with a maybe-maybe-not title change, John Wick spinoff Ballerina, aka From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. I mean, seriously. Meanwhile, June’s major release that sounds like it has the most actual quality was 28 Years Later, but I never bother to see horror at the cinema, so that was never going to be a goer. Also released: live-action remake How to Train Your Dragon, which sounds as pointless as expected; horror sequel M3GAN 2.0, which generated headlines by apparently not being a horror movie at all, more action-sci-fi, which conversely has made me more interested in watching it; and the latest Pixar, Elio, on which the word of mouth has been muted. I’ve got plenty of other Pixar films still to catch up on, so that just joins the list.

I guess summer movie season still exists, because the streamers offered almost nothing original to counterbalance those big screen spectacles. The only thing I have in my notes is Deep Cover, a Prime Video action-comedy from the director of the first two series of Ghosts, starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, and Nick Mohammed. Given all that, I’m assuming it’s more comedy than action. Audience scores look expectedly middling. It’s the kind of thing I definitely would’ve bunged on a few years ago, but nowadays I’m not sure I have the time. Nonetheless, it goes on the list of “2025 films”, so you never know — I mean, that’s a choice of two Challenge categories it qualifies for (until August begins, anyway). If I don’t get round to it soon, I very much doubt it will be significant enough to make 2025’s “50 Unseen” list. But hey, you never know.

As some kind of a counterbalance to that, plenty of big-name theatrical releases made their subscription streaming debut this past month (I wonder if the streamers take those into consideration when plotting their originals’ release dates? Never thought of that before). As per usual, NOW led the way with a slate that included Best Picture winner Anora; sequels to previous Oscar winners in Gladiator II and Joker: Folie à Deux; LEGO-based biopic Piece by Piece; superhero trilogy-closer Venom: The Last Dance; and the remake of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. Prime continued to keep the theatrical window snappy with The Accountant 2 just six weeks after its big screen bow, along with Alex Garland’s Warfare after a longer-but-still-brief 16 weeks; plus Hugh Grant-starring horror Heretic, which feels like it’s taken a more traditional time period, but I haven’t bothered to work out how long. Even Disney+ had a couple worth mentioning — “worth” being a relative term, with one being their high-profile flop live-action remake of Snow White, though the other was doc Ocean with David Attenborough, which I presume has some degree of quality control due to its titular presenter. Even MUBI got in on the act with Best Animated Feature winner Flow (also out on Blu-ray at the end of the month, but I didn’t buy it because the US edition from Criterion sounds better).

Netflix, meanwhile, just had other streamers’ dregs: Barbarian, which used to be on Disney+ a while back; The Equalizer 3, fresh from NOW; Infinite and My Spy, which were both Amazon Originals during the pandemic, if I remember rightly; and the recent Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, which of course used to be on iPlayer here in the UK. Of greater interest, to me at least, were sequel The Wrath of Becky (though I’ve not seen the first, which is streaming somewhere else, so maybe I won’t care to see the sequel, who knows), and The Purge: Election Year and The First Purge — they don’t have any of the other Purge films, but those are the next two I need to watch, so it’s fine by me.

The other fairly-recent catalogue title of note was Past Lives, which has bounced around a bit already but is now on iPlayer (which means I can download it and let it just sit on my hard drive forever alongside the likes of I, Tonya and Licorice Pizza and Selma). Amongst the dozens of other additions, not much provoked a significant “I really should’ve watched that by now” from me. Maybe A Cure for Wellness on Prime, just because I think director Gore Verbinski’s work is usually worth a look. And I remember Personal Shopper (also Prime) was meant to be good.

More conscious-pricking, as usual, were all the films I also own on disc and haven’t (re)watched yet, like Peter Jackson’s King Kong (I’m not sure I’ve seen that since the cinema, despite owning the extended cut on both DVD and Blu-ray), or Stargate (which I’ve owned with the intention of rewatching for literally decades), or Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (which, of course, I bought in Hammer’s recent lavish 4K edition), or Martin Scorsese’s Hugo (a general reminder that I own tonnes of 3D stuff I should get to before my TV dies or something), or Ridley Scott’s Legend (of which I bothered to import Arrow’s US-only release), or, heck, Se7en’s come around again, for the umpteenth time since I bought the 4K release. (All of those are streaming on Prime, by-the-way, who are the kings of making me think “should I have bothered to buy that or would waiting for it on streaming have sufficed?”)

Nonetheless, my addiction to buying more Blu-rays continues unabated. Plenty of upgrades to 4K this month, including a pair of early-’90s Jackie Chan outings from 88 Films, Crime Story and Armour of God II: Operation Condor; should-be-classic Dark City from Arrow; Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (a rare Steelbook buy because the regular edition’s cover was so fugly); the big box edition of The Nice Guys from Second Sight; and a selection of US imports (a bulk order, as always) including Darkman, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and the Rocky box set (I might not have bothered, but two new cuts swayed me). Plus another unwieldy big box from Hammer of The Quatermass Xperiment (not an upgrade, because I’ve never owned it before — how refreshing), and one actual new film on 4K, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17.

The aforementioned US order also included my favourite first-time watch of last year, Bottoms; a rare 3D purchase (not because I don’t choose to buy them, but because they don’t release many nowadays) of ’50s noir The Glass Web; and more noir courtesy of Warner Archive in Mystery Street and Side Street, plus 1921 silent The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (which, I confess, I mainly bought to support the idea of Warner Archive releasing silent movies). Despite that trio, the most prominent label of the month has to be Eureka, with a stylistically wide spread of titles that included 1950s German fantasy Heart of Stone, wartime drama Hong Kong 1941, a double-bill of martial arts action under the surtitle Exact Revenge, and a sextet of ’60s crime thrillers in their Terror in the Fog: The Wallace Krimi at CCC box set.

Other labels only contributed a title or two, although there’s a distinct eastern throughline: fantasy-flavoured action from Arrow in The Invisible Swordsman; samurai horror from Radiance with The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost; and John Woo’s original cut of Heroes Shed No Tears, titled Sunset Warriors, from 88 Films. Breaking the mould, Curzon put out one of the key titles not included in their comprehensive Lars von Trier box set in 2023, Palme d’Or winner Dancer in the Dark. I own that Von Trier set too, so I really ought to dig into his back catalogue more. But then, I’ve got a lot of back catalogue stuff I really ought to dig into.

The Unseasonably Hot Monthly Review of June 2025

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“It’s summer, of course it’s hot,” cry certain people. Yeah, but yesterday was 10–12°C hotter than the average for this time of year, so all the “it’s just summer” people can F off. And let’s not start on the “oh we have those kinds of temperatures all the time” foreigners.

Also, I prefer the cold, so even “regular summer” is a pain in the arse.

Anyway, enough about UK weather (it’s due to break tomorrow anyway, hooray) — here’s what I’ve been watching over the past month…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#51 Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) — New Film #6
#52 The Untouchables (1987) — WDYMYHS #6
#53 Shoot First, Die Later (1974) — Genre #4
#54 Hardware (1990) — Failure #6
#55 28 Days Later (2002) — Rewatch #6
#56 28 Weeks Later (2007) — 50 Unseen #5
#57 Saltburn (2023) — Blindspot #6
#58 Paddington in Peru (2024) — 50 Unseen #6


  • I watched 12 feature films I’d never seen before in June.
  • That’s the first time this year I’ve reached above my minimum target of 10.
  • Seven of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • That’s enough to keep me a whole month ahead of target. In fact, I’ve been doing so well at that, I now only need to average seven Challenge films per month for the rest of the year (normally it’s 8.5 for the back half of the year).
  • A fair chunk of my viewing this month was taken up with the favourite films of work colleagues. My team discussed our favourite-ever movies early in the month, and of the 18 picks, I’d not seen five — so I caught up on them all immediately. The only one that qualified for my Challenge was The Untouchables, because it was already on my WDYMYHS list (the team’s other picks didn’t conveniently slot into one of my incomplete categories — how inconsiderate!)
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Emerald Fennell’s kinda-kinky reimagining of Brideshead Revisited, Saltburn.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Brian De Palma’s stylish but, uh, not exactly historically accurate retelling of the mission to arrest Al Capone, The Untouchables.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Hardware, Paddington in Peru, and Shoot First, Die Later.



The 121st Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m not sure if it’s a “great movie” in its entirety, but The Untouchables has style to spare, plus one of the greatest shootouts in cinema history.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I feel mean picking one of my colleagues’ favourite films here… but hey, there’s no way they read this blog, so why not? It’s not that Save the Last Dance is necessarily terrible for what it is, it’s just that what it is isn’t exactly my kind of movie. That said, nearly a quarter of a century on from its release, it does feel rather dated.


Summer, summer, summertime. Whether the “good” weather stays or not, you can feel that summer season hitting the big screen, with the likes of Superman and a new Jurassic World on the horizon. Are either enough to tempt me out to the cinema? I’m currently unsure. (Find out next month!)

May’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.

As is so often the case, Disney were the dominant box office force this month, bookending May with a pair of discussion-worthy films. At the start, apparently Marvel have finally made a good movie again with Thunderbolts* (aka The New Avengers). I’ve just got seven other MCU films to catch up on before I get there (we’ll just gloss over the nine seasons of TV (plus two specials) that I also haven’t seen). At the end of the month, their latest live-action remake, Lilo & Stitch — from what I’ve seen, not a critical success at all, but certainly a moneymaking one. I guess they won’t be stopping these do-overs anytime soon, then.

Other noteworthy big screen releases in May included (but were not necessarily limited to) a horror franchise return in Final Destination: Bloodlines (the franchise has a history of inconsistent quality (heck, what horror franchise doesn’t?), but I’m sure I’ll watch it eventually); a new Wes Anderson, The Phoenician Scheme (like the MCU, I’m a few behind with Anderson now); and another belated franchise continuation, Karate Kid: Legends (I intend to finish Cobra Kai before I watch this, so I won’t be catching it on the big screen, but hopefully by the time it hits streaming I’ll be ready for it).

We’re clearly heading into summer blockbuster season (does that even exist anymore, with studios releasing big-budget tentpoles basically year-round now?), and streaming was keen to get in on the game with Guy Ritchie’s latest heading direct to Apple TV+. Fountain of Youth looks like National Treasure with the serial numbers filed off, and I read one review which argued it was beat-for-beat Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade but tweaked enough at every stage to avoid plagiarism. Not ringing endorsements, then, but as it’s a genre of movie I mostly enjoy, it might make for easygoing entertainment one evening.

Other original premieres included Cleaner on Sky Cinema / NOW, an actioner directed by Martin Campbell, which apparently continues his streak of only doing mediocre work on films that don’t star James Bond or Zorro. Oh well. In a similar vein, they had another actioner from a once-promising ’90s action director — Simon “Con Air” West — that looks like it’s gone direct to streaming for a reason: Christoph Waltz hitman comedy Old Guy. Going straight to Prime Video was Paul Feig sequel Another Simple Favour (like the original, it challenges whether you’re committed to the sanctity of English spelling or tempting search engines with the American original). As for Netflix, they also continue the franchise game with Fear Street: Prom Queen, which I think is the fourth one, but more interesting was Lost in Starlight. All I could tell you about it is it’s a sci-fi animation, but hey, that’s better than “fourth (I think) instalment in a horror franchise I’ve never watched”.

Turning to theatrical releases making their subscription streaming debuts, I don’t think Netflix had anything to offer this month. Sky Cinema lead the way, as usual, with Oscar nominee The Wild Robot and Tim Burton legacy sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Back when the latter hit cinemas, I wrote that “I’ve never been particularly fond of Beetlejuice… so I certainly wasn’t rushing out to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at the cinema, though I’ll inevitably catch it once it’s streaming somewhere.” Well, now it’s on NOW. I still haven’t rushed to see it (it’s been on there over a fortnight already), but I do intend to at some point. Amazon offered up the latest Jason Statham vehicle, A Working Man, while Disney+ stayed relatively up-to-date with the MCU by adding Captain America: Brave New World — thought I’ll wait until I can source a 3D copy before properly adding it to my aforementioned MCU catch up list.

Digging into back catalogue expansions, I’d love to say Netflix had more to offer, but I’m not sure the likes of Dracula Untold and Gran Turismo are anything to celebrate. They did add Machete Kills, which I have a vague intention to see (it’s 12 years old now and I haven’t seen it yet, which shows you how invested I am), but at this point I’m really keeping my Netflix sub so I can finish catching up on Cobra Kai. Also because I still haven’t watched Paddington in Peru. Prime had a typically lengthy list of kinda-random new stuff — particularly catching my eye were Luc Besson’s The Big Blue, Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter, and fantasy romance classic Ghost (yeah, I’ve never seen Ghost); plus a bunch of reminders for stuff I’ve bought with intent to rewatch but haven’t yet: A Boy and His Dog, A Few Good Men, Natural Born Killers, Ronin, Training Day… I could go on, but instead I’ll switch service for more of the same, as iPlayer also jabbed me about the original Halloween, Highlander, La La Land in 4K, and Toy Story 4 in 3D; plus one I’ve bought and never seen, David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future — but let’s not venture too far down that road, or it’ll be another long list. Instead, let’s close out streaming with something more obscure on MUBI (of course): Only the River Flows. All I know about it is what they had to say, but something described as a “moody neo-noir… a pungently atmospheric serial-killer procedural” sounds right up my street.

But, inevitably, we must flip back to “stuff I bought on disc and didn’t watch”, because there was plenty of that, as ever. Leading the pack in May were 4K upgrades for some absolute classics: from Arrow, the first two entries in Sergio Leone’s trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns, A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More (I have The Good, the Bad and the Ugly preordered, of course), plus Akira Kurosawa’s reimagining of Macbeth, Throne of Blood, courtesy of the BFI. Also in 4K, I imported a trio of hefty limited editions by Umbrella from Australia: Tarsem Singh’s The Fall (considering MUBI are responsible for the 4K restoration, I presume they’ll do a disc here at some point, but no sign of it yet); Richard Stanley’s debut, horror sci-fi Hardware; and (not in 4K) medieval folk horror Black Death, which I have wanted to revisit for a while after I rather enjoyed it more years ago than I care to think about.

No mainstream releases to report this month (I intend to pick up Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, but haven’t yet), but all the usual boutique labels feature, albeit in smaller quantities than sometimes. Leading the pack by volume is Eureka, thanks to four-film Masters of Cinema box set Strange New Worlds: Science Fiction at DEFA, featuring a quartet of sci-fi flicks from mid-20th-century East Germany; plus their latest Shaw Brothers release, The Bells of Death, which I hope lives up to its billing as “a standout wuxia film heavily influenced by both the longstanding Japanese samurai tradition and the emergent Spaghetti Western”. Next we find 88 Films with another giallo, Nine Guests for a Crime, and a pair of Japanese superhero comedies from insanely prolific director Takashi Miike, Zebraman and Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City. Finally, just one from Radiance this month: Japanese prison break thriller The Rapacious Jailbreaker; and one from their partner label, Raro Video: Shoot First, Die Later, a poliziottesco — and as I still need to watch seven of those for this year’s Genre category, it gets to immediately sit pretty high on my to-watch list. Imagine that: actually watching stuff I buy!

The Finally Deadly Reckoned Monthly Review of May 2025

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Has Tom Cruise reckoned his final impossible mission? Time will tell. I sort of hope not, even if it might be time to change up how they make those movies to bring a little more focus back to story and character instead of just extravagant stunt sequences.

They are really, really good stunt sequences, though…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#41 How to Train Your Dragon 3D (2010) — Rewatch #4
#42 Trancers (1984) — Failure #5
#43 I Saw the TV Glow (2024) — 50 Unseen #4
#44 Illustrious Corpses (1976) — Genre #3
#45 Spartacus (1960) — WDYMYHS #5
#46 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) — Rewatch #5
#47 Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) — New Film #5
#48 The Graduate (1967) — Blindspot #5
#49 Funeral in Berlin (1966) — Series Progression #7
#50 Backfire! (1962) — Series Progression #8


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in May.
  • Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches.
  • I finished March a whole month ahead, April one film behind being a month ahead, and for May… I’m a month and one film ahead! The end of June might seem like it’s halfway through the year, but it isn’t in terms of days — so, the target date for #50 is actually a couple of days into July.
  • This “month ahead” business will inevitably slow down at some point — not just because of my usual tardiness, but because some films are ‘locked’ to certain months. There are five categories limited in that way, which means the last point I can still be “a month ahead” is the end of September. But that’s something to aim for, eh?
  • This month’s Blindspot film was only the third movie to take over $100 million at the US box office, The Graduate. (Surprising fact, huh?)
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus.
  • It’s not much of a Stanley Kubrick film (in the sense that, while he did direct it, he later disowned it), but Spartacus is the first Stanley Kubrick film I’ve watched since 2022. I went through a period (about a decade ago now) where I was watching an unseen Kubrick every year. Although that regularity has tailed off, I now have only two of his features left to see (Fear and Desire and Lolita). I own both, so perhaps I’ll try to complete the set sometime soon.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Graduate, Illustrious Corpses, and Trancers.



The 120th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m not coming across many five-star films this year (in fact, the total so far might be none), but a couple have come very close, and I Saw the TV Glow is one of those. It’s hard to describe what it is without seeing it, though I saw someone say it’s the 2020s answer to Donnie Darko and that feels very on point.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
There have been numerous screen adaptations of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and I’ve seen a few of them now. 1989’s Ten Little Indians is probably the worst, although I didn’t dislike it as much as its poor reputation would suggest. That said, it’s only worth watching for people who have exhausted other, better Christie adaptations.


Halfway through the year. I mean, not for me — I’ve already done that. But for, y’know, time.

April’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.

Quite often this column seems to start on a negative note when it comes to new theatrical releases, usually because something has underperformed. Not so this month, with A Minecraft Movie being a box office juggernaut at the start of the month, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners a huge hit towards the end, too. Is the cinema “back”? Or are these just fortunate exceptions? Or maybe they prove that, if you make the right stuff, people will go out to see it. Working out what “the right stuff” is has always been Hollywood’s game, of course; I think they just became so obsessed with shared universes and familiar franchises in the wake of the success of the MCU and The Force Awakens that they forgot they could do anything else if — or, as it’s turned out, when — the general audience began to finally turn their back on ‘reliable’ cash cows.

Also on the big screen this past month, unexpected sequel The Accountant 2 (the first one was nine years ago and it’s not like people have been clamouring for a followup, have they?); Rami Malek-starring spy thriller The Amateur; fantasy comedy Death of a Unicorn; a new thriller from the director of Happy Death Day (which I’m rather fond of), Drop; another Alex Garland war movie, this time shorn of the ‘alternate history’ element, simply titled Warfare; and a handful of other things with varying degrees of impact that aren’t as on my personal radar.

The most noteworthy streaming premiere this month was the long-delayed new actioner from Gareth “The Raid” Evans… but I actually watched that (miracles do happen), so instead I guess the next-biggest was Amazon Prime’s actioner G20, which looks like it should star Gerard Butler but doesn’t. He also turned up on Prime this month though, in direct-to-streaming sequel Den of Thieves: Pantera, in case you missed him. That said, the film that most excited me on Prime this month was Superboys of Malegaon, which I also wrote about when it had a limited theatrical release in February. “If it so excited you, why didn’t you watch it?” A reasonable question. It only arrived near the end of the month, so it’s a top contender to be watched as May’s Failure.

There were plenty of other big-name and/or acclaimed theatrical titles also making their streaming debuts this month. Sticking with Prime, BAFTA Best Picture winner Conclave also dropped right at the end of the month, plus they offered awards also-ran September 5. Netflix had arguably the most populist newcomer with Paddington in Peru (I was surprised it was streaming “already”, then realised just how far through 2025 we are already), along with less well-known but well-regarded How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies. NOW was no shirk either, with Despicable Me 4, Twisters, Transformers One, and M Night Shyamalan’s Trap. Even Disney+ and MUBI got in on the game, with the former dropping Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, also right at the end of the month, and the latter offering Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl.

Recent-ish releases that also grabbed attention by moving around exactly where they were streaming included Anatomy of a Fall, Asteroid City, Black Adam, Don’t Worry Darling, Expend4bles, and Saw X (all now on Netflix), and… oh, I think that’s it. Does everything gravitate towards Netflix in the end? I’m sure they’d like you to think it does. My list of “stuff I could mention in this column” is far longer for Prime every month, I’ll tell you that. Amazon’s offering certainly includes more variety, with a greater number of older and more obscure titles. I mean, I’d never expect to find well-regarded poliziotteschi Illustrious Corpses or Neil “brother of Sean” Connery-starring James Bond spoof Operation Kid Brother on Netflix, yet they’re both on Prime now. Heck, even something like American Graffiti would be a surprise — sure, it’s directed by George Lucas, but it’s old! Yuck! Plus, they’ve also recently added a bunch of stuff that’s been released on disc by Radiance — ones I spied (because I own them, of course) included Big Time Gambling Boss, Messiah of Evil, We Still Kill the Old Way, and Yakuza Graveyard.

The list of other back catalogue stuff I could mention is, as ever, long. For a little insight, even six paragraphs into the column, my list of still-unmentioned streaming additions is 123 films long. Exactly half of those are reminders of stuff I own on disc that I either haven’t watched or would like to revisit. (Obviously exactly half would be 61.5, but you can’t have 0.5 films, so it rounds to 62, which is exactly how many there are. Ha-ha!) Any of particular note? Well, a handful of titles I need to watch for Blindspot that left streaming earlier in the year are now back — Midsommar and The Notebook on Prime; The Graduate on iPlayer — but I already, uh, acquired other copies, so it doesn’t really matter. Reminders for films I’ve upgraded to 4K on disc but still haven’t rewatched were, as ever, abundant, with headliners including Schindler’s List on Netflix; The Departed, Heat, and The Lost Boys on Prime; Vanilla Sky and The Warriors on NOW; The Abyss on Disney+; and the first four Indiana Joneses pulling a double whammy by turning up on both Netflix and NOW.

There were also additions to almost every streamer that remind me how poorly I’ve done with reviews over the last few years — i.e. stuff I’ve already seen but haven’t written up, like Fast X on Netflix, Judgment at Nuremberg on Prime, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm on NOW, and Dumbo (the live-action one) on iPlayer. They’re not failures in the sense this column means, because I’m not imminently intending to watch them again (heck, half of them I don’t ever intend to watch again), but they’re certainly failures of a different kind.

And if we’re talking about failures on multiple levels, well, what are my disc purchases but failures of self-control? Especially considering how few of them I actually watch. But let’s dodge that existential crisis (as I do every month) by just diving into a list of what I’ve bought recently. Brand-new films are limited to Nosferatu on 4K, but other 4K new releases included ’80s sci-fi actioner Trancers from 101 Films, ’90s action thriller The Long Kiss Goodnight from Arrow, and giallo Short Night of Glass Dolls from 88 Films, who also released Jackie Chan’s Miracles. Those latter two labels feature prominently in a bunch of sale pickups this month, too: from Arrow, vampire horror The Addiction, horror thriller Mute Witness, and horror sequel three-pack Psycho: The Story Continues, plus another horror sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic, on regular Blu-ray; and from 88, giallo Eyeball and Lovecraftian horror From Beyond, That’s a whole lot of horror, especially considering I’d never say it’s a favourite genre. Possibly that’s why I have so much to catch up on. Other 4K titles I’ve waited to appear in sales included Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead, Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, and James Cameron’s The Terminator (I avoided it initially because of Cameron’s love for AI upscaling, but apparently it’s not that bad here).

In terms of non-4K releases, 88 feature heavily again, though here with Japanese and Hong Kong movies of various stripes: Kinji Fukasaku’s Jakoman & Tetsu, Shaw Brothers’ Lady with a Sword, and gangster drama Yakuza Wives. More recently from Japan is fantasy comedy A Samurai in Time, the first-ever independent film to win Best Picture at the Japanese Academy Awards. Also “recent” in the sense of “from this century”, the BFI release of Takeshi Kitano’s Brother. A few more titles in the same general milieu came from Eureka, with ’90s Hong Kong actioner The Adventurers and a pair from director Chang Cheh, The Magnificent Trio and Magnificent Wanderers. Eureka also released a box set of six Dr Mabuse films from the ’60s in their Mabuse Lives! box set, which also prompted me to finally pick up their 2012 Blu-ray of Fritz Lang’s classic Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse.

I held off on that last one because I own it on DVD as part of Eureka’s nicely-presented Lang/Mabuse set, and somehow 13 years has passed. 13 years! Gives you some perspective on how long Blu-ray has been around now, and how much the industry fucked up driving a transition away from DVD. All those people who’ve proudly bought 4K TVs and probably just watch DVDs and low-tier-subscription low-quality streaming on them, thinking they’re getting a UHD experience… Well, that’s not my problem!