Tag Archives: January

The Back to the Start Monthly Review of January 2025

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As always, the triumph (or failure, but you feel it more after triumph) of the end of the year is followed by being kicked right back to the start. So, without further ado, the 19th year of my Challenge began with…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#1 Death Goes to School (1953) — Wildcard #1
#2 Anna Karenina (2012) — 50 Unseen #1
#3 The Six Triple Eight (2024) — Wildcard #2
#4 Run Lola Run (1998) — Failure #1
#5 Eraserhead (1977) — Blindspot #1
#6 Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger (2025) — New Film #1
#7 Milano Calibro 9 (1972) — Genre #1
#8 Ice Age: Collision Course 3D (2016) — Series Progression #1
#9 Empire of Light (2022) — 50 Unseen #2
#10 Fist of Fury (1972) — WDYMYHS #1
#11 Oliver & Company (1988) — Rewatch #1


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in January.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • Regular readers may be aware that the target for the end of January (to be on track for #100) is #8, so I’m nicely ahead. Mind you, I’ve been ahead every year of the new Challenge so far; in 2022, I even made it one further. Point being: it doesn’t necessarily mean a whole lot.
  • More importantly (I think), I’ve managed to get all nine Challenge categories underway — the first time I’ve achieved that in January.
  • An even longer-held first (which I can report on because, yes, I keep records of ridiculous things like this): 2025 is the first time in the 19-year history of this blog that I’ve watched films #1 and #2 on the same day. (With the caveat that my records are a bit less thorough for 2007 and 2008, so it may have happened all the way back then as well.)
  • On the downside, I didn’t manage to post any film reviews this month — neither an attempt at starting 2025’s coverage, nor my favourite film winner from last month. Having devoted so much time to my end-of-year wrap-up posts at the start of the month, then having a busy time at the ol’ day job, I didn’t squeeze any review-writing in. I’ll try to get back on it next month.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was the debut feature by David Lynch (RIP), Eraserhead.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Bruce Lee classic Fist of Fury.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Run Lola Run.



The 116th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’d never previously seen a poliziotteschi, this year’s chosen genre, so I decided to dive in with something that is regularly highly recommended — and (as you’ve surely guessed from this intro) it paid off, with Milano Calibro 9 (aka Caliber 9) being just about my favourite film this month (“just about” because there were a couple of other very good ones). That’s fortunate — imagine if I’d hated it just after I’d committed myself to a year of them?

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I finally went back to a film series I was working through a few years ago, and almost immediately regretted it. I did wonder if they were always this bad, but the internet assures me that, no, Ice Age: Collision Course really is a nadir.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
You might be expecting me to again mention my lack of reviews, and I was going to, but something more pressing has emerged. Unfortunately, WordPress / Jetpack recently changed the way they display traffic statistics, which means it’s become a pain in the arse to work out the winner of this category every month. I battled through to the end of last year, but I’m not going to put up with it going forward — so, sadly, the audience award is no more.

And on that downer…


February is the shortest month of the year. Fortunately, I’m already ahead of schedule. Will I still be ahead as we head into March? Find out in 28 days!

January’s Failures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Welcome Monthly Review of January 2024

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Welcome to 2024 — almost a quarter of a century on from the millennium! Jesus. Think of all those bold predictions they had about how amazing life would be by the year 2000. Imagine what they would’ve thought another quarter-century would bring. And look at the shit we’ve actually got…

But anyway, let’s leave the depression of the wider world aside for a moment, because the new year is actually off to a pretty decent start here at 100 Films — including more film reviews in one month than I published in the whole of 2023. More of that later. First, as always, my Challenge progress…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#1 Lift (2024) — New Film #1
#2 Only Yesterday (1991) — Blindspot #1
#3 Jackass Forever (2022) — Series Progression #1
#4 Barbie (2023) — 50 Unseen #1
#5 Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) — Failures #1
#6 The Best of the Martial Arts Films (1990) — Genre #1
#7 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 3D (2018) — Rewatch #1
#8 Bottoms (2023) — 50 Unseen #2
#9 In the Name of the Father (1993) — WDYMYHS #1


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in January.
  • Meeting my “10 new films a month” minimum target has been problematic for the last couple of years, so it’s nice to see 2024 off to a good start.
  • Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • I managed to spread those around enough that I’ve started all eight ‘proper’ categories (the exception being Wildcards, which is a category, obviously, but also… isn’t, in that the defining feature is they’re extra films for the other categories).
  • Talking of categories, Jackass Forever was the first film of the year where I had a choice: it could qualify as either 50 Unseen or Series Progression. I chose to watch it because it qualified for the former, but I decided to actually count it as the latter. That leaves an extra slot open to help encourage me to watch even more Unseens, and also helps ensure variety in Series Progression (I was worried it would end up full of Edgar Wallace Mysteries). Either way, it wraps up the Jackass film series (I’m not counting all the .5s and spinoffs), thus finally reducing the number of series I have on the go. I feel like I’m just constantly adding to that list, so it’s nice for something to come off it.
  • Just under five years since I imported the Blu-ray from Australia, I finally watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 3D. I’d say it was worth the wait, but there didn’t need to be a wait; but if the wait had been enforced, it would’ve been worth it, because the 3D is incredible. As is the movie, but I knew that.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Isao Takahata anime Only Yesterday.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was miscarriage-of-justice thriller In the Name of the Father.
  • As my WDYMYHS challenge this year is tied to the IMDb Top 250, it’s possible that qualifying films will shift throughout the year. I mention this now because it’s happened already: in the last month, Poor Things had entered the chart, and both Gangs of Wasseypur and the 2015 remake of Drishyam have dipped back in. When I conceived of doing this, I had 17 films to see; now, it’s up to 23. If it carries on at this rate, it’ll be two years’ worth of WDYMYHS…
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched just Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.



The 104th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
There may be multiple films that end up with a five-star rating this month (I haven’t quite settled on a couple), but only one film this month — heck, only one film in the past 18 years — has inspired me to watch it again immediately after my first viewing, and that was Bottoms.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing outright bad this month, so I look to the gaggle of three-star-ish films. I expect such mediocrity from the likes of Lift or Jackass Forever, but Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget being no more than “fine” is disappointing from Aardman.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
For the first time in almost a year, this award is a reasonable competition — it’s not just a two-way face-off between the previous month’s review and “failures”, but includes all my year-in-review posts about 2023, as well as some actual film reviews. Indeed, it was the latter that won, with 2024 Week 2 — which contained reviews of Lift (as a new Netflix release, this is likely what did most of the, er, lifting), Only Yesterday, and Jackass Forever — not only being the top new post, but coming 2nd overall. Neat.



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


The shortest month of the year, for slightly longer than usual (because it’s a leap year).

January’s Failures

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I can’t speak for the whole country, but Avatar: The Way of Water seems to have still been the big title at the cinema here throughout January. By which I mean, my local still had it on their largest screen in most of the prime time-slots. But then, there’s been nothing else truly “blockbustery” to challenge its need for the grandest scale possible. There have been significant releases, sure; and there’s always the “every film should be seen on the biggest screen possible” argument; but nothing else came out in January that’s so expressly about visual spectacle. Any crowdpleasers that have turned up — horror M3GAN; Gerard Butler vehicle Plane; Tom Hanks comedy A Man Called Otto — hardly feel of the same scale.

I use the term “crowdpleasers” to differentiate those films from most of the UK’s January release slate, which is, as usual, dominated by awards season stuff that we’ve had to wait for: Babylon, Empire of Light, The Fabelmans, Tár, Till… Plus, limited releases that caught my eye included the new one from Mark “Bait” Jenkin, Enys Men (out on Blu-ray from the BFI in June), and Iranian thriller Holy Spider (which will be on MUBI in March and Blu-ray in April).

The streamers also seemed to be mainly trading in hangovers from last year, with Netflix releasing starry period mystery-thriller The Pale Blue Eye (reaction seems to have been mixed, but it looks really good), Amazon Prime offering Emma Thompson sex drama Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Disney+ generating plenty of discourse with The Menu, and even MUBI getting in on the act with awards contender Aftersun. Netflix did premiere a few brand-new things, though I’ve not come across a single mention of Bank of Dave, word has been poor about race/generation-based comedy You People, and the new sci-fi from Train to Busan writer-director Yeon Sang-Ho, JUNG_E, didn’t receive strong notices either. This is why I ended up watching Shotgun Wedding as my new film for January…

There was the usual mass of catalogue additions across all the streamers to bulk out my never-ending watchlists. Particular titles of note included, believe it or not, Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of Halloween, which I only note because it was on my first-ever list of 50 missed films but, in the intervening decade-and-a-half, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it on a streaming service before. Maybe it’s a sign I should give it a go. Maybe not. That’s on Netflix, along with The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (I liked the first one enough to put the second my watchlist, but not enough to rush to see it, clearly), Mars One (I’ve actually no idea what this is, but it keeps coming up on my Letterboxd under “popular films you’ve not seen”), and Vesper (a low-budget British young-adult sci-fi that I heard about somewhere and sounded quite good). Moving on to Amazon Prime were Judas and the Black Messiah and Mortal Kombat (the recent one), while I was surprised that Sky Cinema became home to David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. I think I’ll wait for Second Sight’s 4K disc release, thanks.

A couple of the streamers boasted themed seasons this month. MUBI had a run of debuts, featuring filmmakers as diverse as Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Love Is Colder Than Death, an awesome title) and Paul W.S. Anderson (Shopping). All 4 have had a run of Steven Spielberg’s major works, all of which I’ve seen, but it did remind me that I bought his brilliant The Adventures of Tintin in 3D yonks ago and still haven’t got round to watching it. Plus I loved it, so it’s long overdue a rewatch anyway.

Talking of purchases, of course my habit continued unabated throughout January. It began with some hangovers from last year — orders from the US and Australia that took longer than expected to turn up, thanks to postal strikes and general season delays. From Oz, some new Imprint titles, including the second volume of their After Dark: Neo-Noir Cinema series, ’50s post-apocalyptic sci-fi On the Beach, and Akira Kurosawa’s Russian feature, Dersu Uzala. My order from the US was an even more ragtag bunch, starting with a few recent classic 3D releases: The Diamond Wizard and I, the Jury, the latter of which also comes with an apparently-underwhelming 4K copy. Also on 4K were George Miller’s latest, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Kino’s release of The Usual Suspects (which I never bought on Blu, so that’s a healthy upgrade), and, on something of a whim, Shout’s The Company of Wolves. Also in the box were a couple of titles I’ve had on standby for a while ready to bulk out a US order: Criterion’s edition of Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman and Warner Archive’s release of A Night at the Opera. Finally, the US-only “yellow” set from Arrow’s Giallo Essentials range, which includes Strip Nude for Your Killer, Torso, and What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

I was buying that anyway, but after deciding to make gialli a category in my 2023 Challenge, I also picked up a couple more titles that caught my eye while going through lists of the genre; namely, Death Laid an Egg and The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh. Those were both UK releases; I’ve got my eye on a couple more next time I do a US bulk order. I also upgraded my copy of Arrow’s Phenomena to the 4K version, having noticed that some of their Argento 4K sets are beginning to go out of print (replaced by standard editions, at least) and this one did look like a noticeable upgrade (I didn’t bother with Bird with a Crystal Plumage because it didn’t seem that big a jump from the existing Blu-ray).

There’s normally a trickle of 4K titles in these failure posts, and I’ve already mentioned six, but there were even more this month: Arrow’s recent-ish reissue of Silent Running; Jordan Peele’s Nope on offer; similarly, the Bad Boys trilogy and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood all in a 2-for-1 type deal; plus nice editions of The Green Mile and Reservoir Dogs (the Steelbook with the slipcover that makes his ear come off. Hilarity). Finally, the second volume of the Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection, which I’d intended to get at some point anyway, but was on a reasonable offer and includes Shadow of a Doubt, which I’ll be watching sometime this year for WDYMYHS.

All those titles — so, so many titles — and I don’t think I’ve mentioned a single brand-new release yet. Most notable there is my first batch of titles from new label Radiance, all of which are blind-buy punts (well, so is an awful lot of what I buy, to be fair, but I don’t think I’d even heard of any of these before I dived in). They include yakuza classic Big Time Gambling Boss, Palme d’Or-winning social drama The Working Class Goes to Heaven, ‘lost’ ’60s serial killer thriller A Woman Kills, and a crime comedy from the director of the brilliant Grosse Pointe Blank, Miami Blues. They’re all very handsome editions, so hopefully the content lives up to the thoughtful packaging. I’ve already got a few more of their releases on preorder.

Talking of preorders turning up, I spent far too much money in All the Anime’s pre-Christmas preorder announcements/sale, but its finally beginning to bear fruit, with Liz and the Blue Bird and The Deer King both turning up (weeks before their official dates) this month. I didn’t realise the former was a spinoff from the series Sound! Euphonium — I’ve heard of it (and decided to buy it) because it’s a staple of the mid-range on Letterboxd’s official list of the 100 highest-rated feature-length animated films. I was briefly worried (“will I need to have seen other stuff to ‘get’ it?”), until I remembered the Letterbox list explicitly excludes “sequels to shows or anime series […] that need greater context before watching are not included”. Phew!

Finally, in the new-new pile we can also find Eureka’s editions of Sergio Sollima Spaghetti Western Run, Man, Run and — last but not least, one of the film’s in this month’s header image — Michelle Yeoh actioner Royal Warriors.

The Late-Blooming Monthly Review of January 2023

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Ladies, gents, and everyone else, even in my 17th year, 100 Films continues to break records. I mean, they’re my own records — hardly anything that’s going to end up in that famous alcohol-branded tome of achievements — but you might think that, after a decade and a half of doing this, everything would be in some kind of rhythm, and/or that the extremes had already been explored and set. Not so!

So, what is January 2023’s claim to fame? It’s… my latest start ever! That is to say, the furthest into the year that I’ve watched my first film.

Okay, not a particularly auspicious accolade. Nor a “good” one, really. And certainly not a difficult one to beat, if I so choose — if there’s anything easier to do than “watching films”, it’s “not watching films”. But still, it’s something different to witter about in an introduction, so why not?

And it wasn’t one of those “technically a new record” where it goes just a little beyond the old one, either. My previous latest start was back in 2011, when I didn’t watch my first film of the year until January 10th. This year, it took all the way until the 19th. What happened? A mix of things. Focusing on getting 2022 wrapped up, first of all. Then planning out my 2023 Challenge and associated lists (Blindspot, WDYMYHS). The start of January turned out to be a busy period at my day job, too. And then my first few weekends of the year got eaten up by family commitments, to boot.

Anyway, all that’s behind me and I’m underway now — although the late start did hamper at least one of my viewing goals…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#1 The Magician (1926) — Failures #1
#2 Streets of Fire (1984) — Rewatch #1
#3 7500 (2019) — Wildcard #1
#4 The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) — Genre #1
#5 Shotgun Wedding (2022) — New Film #1
#6 The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) — Wildcard #2
#7 Black Girl (1966) — Blindspot #1
#8 The Goddess (1934) — Physical Media #1
#9 Gun Crazy (1950) — WDYMYHS #1


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in January.
  • For years now, I’ve aimed for at least ten first-time watches each month. 2022 was a failure in that respect (seven months didn’t make it), and now 2023 isn’t off to a great start either.
  • Seven of those counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with two rewatches. That’s more positive, as it means I’m slightly ahead of target.
  • I also watched one short film: freshly Oscar-nominated My Year of Dicks. *schoolboygiggle*
  • This year’s Challenge is made up of nine categories, and I thought I’d got them all underway… until I released I’d forgotten Series Progression. Never mind.
  • The one new first-time-watch that didn’t count towards my Challenge was Glass Onion. I could’ve put it down as a Wildcard — an additional Failure — but I’m fairly certain I’m going to rewatch it before too long, so I’ve saved it for whenever that happens.
  • Instead, my first Wildcard of 2023 became a different rewatch: 7500. I wasn’t planning it, but I started the film to check something for my review (see the Reviews section) and ended up sucked in enough that I kept going. It’s a good film.
  • Updated rules mean I’ve also already logged my second Wildcard, and that was an additional Failure from December 2022: The Banshees of Inisherin.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was the first feature film made by an indigenous person from sub-Saharan Africa, Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Bonnie and Clyde-esque noir Gun Crazy.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Banshees of Inisherin, Glass Onion, and The Magician.



The 92nd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
The one film that didn’t count towards my Challenge was also my favourite of the month: the second Benoit Blanc mystery, Glass Onion. Note how I’m not using its “subtitle”. That’s because it’s not used in the film itself (only in the marketing), so doesn’t really count as part of the title. Some sites are coming round to this. Others… well, it’s provoked the usual kind of circular arguments in the Talk section of Wiki-bloody-pedia.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
No outright duds this month, in my opinion (others would disagree about Shotgun Wedding, but I thought it was fun lightweight Friday night fare). By a pip I give this to The Magician — as I say, not a bad film, and interesting for its influence on films that followed (James Whale was a fan and drew on parts of it for Frankenstein), but simply not as entertaining as everything else I watched.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Although by no means a big hit in itself (taking all posts into account, it came 46th), the most successful new post this month was my Best of 2022 list.



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


The shortest month of the year, and therefore the de facto most challenging to hit all my targets.

January’s Failures

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Oo-ooh, wouldja look at this? After three years as just part of my monthly review, Failures has gone and got its own dedicated post! Well, it was getting ridiculously long to be just a part of something else. There’s just so much stuff to see every month, and so much of it I don’t see…

We begin, as ever, with the big screen, where there’s something of a sense of things being back to normal, at least in terms of what’s being released. I think the closest to what could conceivably be called a blockbuster this month was the new Scream, while the rest of the UK release schedule was filled with belated bows for things like Licorice Pizza, Belfast, and Nightmare Alley. Let’s be honest, they’re not things that would tempt me out to the cinema in the best of days (I’ll wait for an at-home option), never mind in Covid times.

I’m not alone in such thoughts, of course, and so the streamers continue to trot stuff out to capture our fleeting interest, though there weren’t any particularly big guns this month, unless I missed something. I think Netflix’s biggest offering was Robert Harris adaptation Munich: The Edge of War, as well as a UK debut for Chloë Grace Moretz sci-fi Mother/Android. Moretz used to be on track to be a genuine movie star, but nowadays I feel like I only see her turn up in direct-to-streaming stuff no one seems to know is coming — like, out of nowhere, there’ll be a new film starring her on Netflix or Amazon now and then. I don’t know if that’s a deliberate career choice or a case of reduced options…

Meanwhile, over at Prime Video, there was George Clooney’s latest directorial effort, The Tender Bar, starring Ben Affleck, and acquired fourquel Hotel Transylvania: Transformania. I watched the first of those last year and thought it was moderately likeable, so maybe I’ll get to the fourth one day. There’s also Copshop, which I think they’re billing as a Premiere rather than an Original, or something? I can’t remember, and I can’t be bothered to load it up right now just to check. I guess it’s the difference between “stuff we own and will always be here” and “stuff we’ve bought exclusive rights to for a bit”. Sky’s ‘originals’ always feel like they’re in a similar limbo. This month those included Save the Cinema, which looks like a pleasant ‘little Britain’ kind of film, and Naked Singularity, which is apparently a heist movie starring John Boyega, Olivia Cooke, Bill Skarsgard. Again, having heard no one mention it doesn’t exactly suggest it’s worth one’s time.

As usual with Sky, more interesting were their other premieres — the likes of Pig, A Quiet Place Part II, The Paper Tigers, and No Sudden Move. That last one’s actually been on there since October, but somehow I’d missed that it was a new Steven Soderbergh film. I need to catch up on his stuff. They also had Nobody, which I’ve seen and really should’ve reviewed, and Supernova, which I bought on disc and really should’ve seen and reviewed. Over on Prime, there was Demonic — which catches my attention purely because it’s the latest from Neill Blomkamp, a director who’s star has faded to the point where this got very little attention during its cinema window — and, eh, a bunch of older stuff. If I listed everything I deemed worthy of bunging on my watchlist, we’d be here forever.

Netflix’s catalogue offerings all felt like hand-me-downs: The Gentlemen, after it was on Prime for yonks last year; and Dolittle, after it had been on iPlayer all over Christmas. Talking of iPlayer, they offered The Souvenir (which used to be on MUBI) and Mary Queen of Scots (which used to be on, er, Netflix). But, hey, at least you expect a free TV-schedule-derived streamer to be a relatively-late-to-the-game kinda place for these things. Still, iPlayer does a decent job nowadays, what with also offering the likes of The Sisters Brothers, sci-fi Little Joe, Lady Macbeth, and Personal Shopper. Plus, you’re more likely to find older classics there than pretty much anywhere else, which this month included In the Heat of the Night and a bunch of war films. You can find some similarly interesting stuff on Channel 4’s catchup — the main thing I want to try to catch from last month is Topsy-Turvy, which hasn’t been on UK TV for a ridiculously long time. It’s quite long though, and C4 does force adverts on you, so I can see myself failing at that again in February.

I’m still subscribed to MUBI, though considering they add a film a day and this month I’ve only long-listed three to mention, and the only one I’m going to bother to mention is Céline Sciamma’s debut, Water Lilies, I do wonder if I should be. (There’s a bunch of stuff on there I keep meaning to catch up on, though.) As for Disney+, they seem to mainly be focusing on series right now, but did offer Marvel’s Eternals weeks before its disc release. Seems to be the way things are going.

And talking of discs releases, yeah, I still bought dozens of the things. No such thing as a post-Christmas slump for me. Brand-spanking-new releases included the 4K discs of Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho and Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel — last month I mooted that I should watch the latter on Disney+ before committing to buying it. Obviously, that didn’t happen. Hope I like it! Of course, most of my purchases are blind-buys anyway — I did exactly the same with Donnie Yen action-thriller Raging Fire. Exactly the same, because it was also a Zavvi-exclusive Steelbook that’s the UK’s only 4K release. Other new releases included more Asian action in Eureka’s double-bill of Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son; the mystery of a missing hammer in a nudist camp in Patrick; and importing the 4K of Blood for Dracula, aka Andy Warhol’s Dracula, to go with last month’s import of the 4K of Flesh for Frankenstein, aka Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein.

You’d think January sales might account for much disc purchasing this month, but not really. I nabbed Blade in 4K when it was randomly cheap on Amazon the other week; and I think silent drama Piccadilly was slightly reduced when I picked it up — but that’s about it. Although I did get the limited edition of anime In This Corner of the World for a steal. Places like HMV are still selling it for £20, but there’s a guy on eBay who has it for a fiver. Seemed worth a punt, and it paid off. Otherwise, there were a couple of things that came out late last year and I didn’t get for Christmas (the BFI’s release of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and StudioCanal’s 4K disc of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), and a semi-random US order. I almost order in ‘bulk’ from the US these days, to average out the cost of shipping. There’s always stuff I want to pad out an order, anyhow. This one was provoked by a Criterion sale (from which I only got High Sierra and Hitchcock’s The Lodger in the end), plus the new release of Gambit (the Michael Caine / Shirley MacLaine one) and some more new releases that are still in the post. I used it as a chance to also get Kiss Me Kate (in 3D) and Vincent Price I Am Legend adaptation The Last Man on Earth.

Finally, I also bought the animated Transformers movie — fully known as The Transformers: The Movie, of course — on 4K. But does that really count as a failure when I consciously bought it to watch “sometime this year” as part of WDYMYHS? Something to mull over ’til next month…

The All-New Monthly Review of January 2022

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I’ve already lied to you, dear reader. I say that because much of this monthly review is going to seem familiar — “All-New” it is not. “Partially new”, that would be the truth: there are new graphics, and a revised focus in some sections, both to fit in with the blog’s new identity.

Despite that, I’ve stuck with the “all-new” moniker to reflect The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge, my progress with which is now the primary focus of these monthly updates… although you can still find links to all my reviews; and the Arbies survive, now in their 80th month, still drawing from everything I watched.

Well, we’ll see how it goes. On which note, on it goes…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#1 Carry On Spying (1964) — Decades #1
#2 Gosford Park (2001) — Rewatches #1
#3 Penny Serenade (1941) — Decades #2
#4 The Navigator (1924) — Decades #3
#5 Flight of the Navigator (1986) — WDYMYHS #1
#6 In the Line of Fire (1993) — Decades #4
#7 Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper (2004) — Decades #5
#8 Free Guy (2021) — Decades #6
#9 Mass (2021) — New Films #1
#10 Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise (2007) — DVDs #1
#11 Voyage of Time: An IMAX Documentary (2016) — Decades #7
#12 L’avventura (1960) — Blindspot #1


  • I watched 11 feature films I’d never seen before in January.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • As you may or may have inferred from that, this means I effectively have two counts running now: my 100 Films Challenge, and how many new films I’ve seen. The former may be the official thing going on nowadays, but a decade-and-a-half habit is hard to break, so on my ‘new film’ count goes. As I said up top, it’s the Challenge that’s the focus of these posts now, but I’ll still be including titbits about my overall new film viewing. And come the end of the year, it’s the overall new viewing that will continue to fuel things like my Top 10 and the statistics post.
  • So, to the Challenge. As the year gets underway, most — in fact, everything — I watch counts. I don’t expect that to be the case as we go forward.
  • For example: I’m not surprised to see the Decades category filling up fastest, because it’s so easy to complete. Slots are filled by any film that (a) isn’t better off counted towards another category, and (b) isn’t from a decade already ticked off — and, as the year begins, none are ticked off (obv). With 7 out of 12, Decades is already 58% complete. As for the remainder, the 1910s might require a special effort (I don’t watch many films that old without explicitly setting out to), but I imagine the others will take care of themselves in short order.
  • Just in case it needs stating for anyone: yes, Mass is “a 2021 movie” thanks to its festival screenings (the US and Canadian releases were also last year), but it didn’t come out in the UK until 20th January, which makes it a 2022 (i.e. new) movie for me.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was L’avventura, which I’ve been putting off including on the list (or watching in any other way) for years. I haven’t particularly enjoyed other classics of mid-20th-century Italian cinema, like Bicycle Thieves or 8½, so I feared this would be the same. And that’s part of the motivation for watching it first: ripping off the plaster. Well, it was a somewhat pleasant surprise. More when I review it soon.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Flight of the Navigator, which I watched on Prime Video. The danger of putting titles from streamers on a “movies I must watch this year” list is that at some point, possibly without warning, they could disappear from that streamer. But that also makes them an easy choice for where to start. This year there are only two across all 24 films from Blindspot and WDYMYHS, and they’re both on the latter list — I imagine the other will be next month’s pick.
  • I didn’t watch anything from last month’s “failures”. And as for this month’s failures: I’ve finally decided to spin the feature off into its own post. Look for that in the next day or two.



The 80th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Although my viewing numbers this month were more than solid (getting to 100 films in a year at a steady pace — something the new challenge is partially intended to enforce — requires an average of 8.3 films a month), the level of quality was more middling. One film did stand out, though: Mass, a chamber piece that puts you through the emotional wringer, powered by a quartet of awards-worthy performances.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Conversely, the month’s middling quality means it’s also hard to pick a worst film. By a nose, I’m going to say Voyage of Time, because I didn’t get as much out of it as I might’ve hoped. Plus, MUBI’s pathetic attempt at streaming in 4K (a feature they’d specifically pushed in the film’s advertising) got on my wick.

Best Navigator of the Month
The navigator in The Navigator is actually the name of the boat; and even if it weren’t, Buster Keaton is pretty poor at navigating it. The navigator in Flight of the Navigator is the kid who bonds with the spaceship, and while he’s ostensibly in charge, I think the spacecraft actually does most of the work. But in Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper, Barbie manages to ride into the forest and go straight to the exact hidden cabin where her doppelgänger is being held captive. Impressive navigation, Barbie.

Biggest Mystery of the Month
Whodunnit in Gosford Park? What happened to Anna in L’avventura? How did David lose eight years in Flight of the Navigator? Can they catch the assassin in In the Line of Fire? What are the villains up to in Carry On Spying? Can Meat Loaf put on a gig that makes him happy in In Search of Paradise? No, the biggest mystery of the month is: what the feck is Brad Pitt on about in the Voyage of Time narration?!

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
No break-out successes this month — the victor is down in 30th place overall, behind a slew of archive TV columns — but it was a close-run thing nonetheless, with two posts tied for second place, just two hits behind the winner. Said winner was, somewhat appropriately, The Best of 2021. And now it’s the best of (January) 2022, too. Hurrah.



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


It’s 100 Films’ 15th birthday (just two months after launching! Is this what being a time traveller feels like?)

I had been thinking I’d mark the occasion with a revised version of 100 Favourites, as that’s five years old, but those things take literally years to put together (well, the first one did), and while I had been considering it for years, it’s been overtaken by the relaunch. Maybe in 2023.

Other than that, erm, things continue much the same…

The Tenacious Monthly Review of January 2021

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Some people have decided that January is actually the 13th month of 2020, given how most of the woes of last year didn’t magically evaporate when our arbitrarily-appointed start-time for a “new year” rolled around. Funny that. It’s a nice idea — to think that we can write off this month by association with last year — but, the way things are going, I think if you want to carry that idea through you’re going to end up with a 2020 that has 17 or 18 or 19 months… perhaps even a full 24, who knows.

So, back in the real world, the inevitable “second year of shittiness” that is 2021 began with January. Here’s what I watched during it…


#1 Bill (2015)
#2 WolfWalkers (2020)
#3 Ernest & Celestine (2012), aka Ernest et Célestine
#4 Happy Death Day 2U (2019)
#5 Festen (1998), aka The Celebration
#6 You Only Live Once (1937)
#7 The Frighteners: Director’s Cut (1996)
#7a Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
#8 Hotel Transylvania 3D (2012)
#9 Wolf Warrior (2015), aka Zhan lang
#10 Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo (2017)
#11 One Night in Miami… (2020)
#12 Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
#13 Joint Security Area (2000), aka Gongdong gyeongbi guyeok JSA
#14 Calling Dr. Death (1943)
#15 Under Siege (1992)
#16 Who? (1974)
#17 The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix (1975), aka Flåklypa Grand Prix
#18 Blithe Spirit (2020)
#19 Tower Heist (2011)
#20 The Social Dilemma (2020)
#21 3 Idiots (2009)
#22 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
#23 The Secret Garden (2020)
#24 Cats (2019)
#25 Sansho Dayu (1954), aka Sansho the Bailiff
#26 Psycho Goreman (2020)
WolfWalkers

Joint Security Area

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Psycho Goreman

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  • As should be self-evident, I watched 26 new feature films in January.
  • I used that exact wording for my opening note last year too, which I only discovered after I wrote the above sentence and then went to look up how I’d worded it last year. I guess you could call it consistency, or style, or something like that. “Unimaginatively repetitious” would be a less kind label…
  • Anyway, that tally actually edges January 2021 into my top 10 months ever, in 10th place. With 169 months in 100 Films history, that means it’s in my top 6% of months ever.
  • There are no other Januarys in the top 10 — which is another way of saying, this is my best January ever, beating 2016’s 21.
  • Naturally, that also means it obliterated the January average (previously 11.46, now 12.50), as well as toppling the rolling average of the last 12 months (previously 22.0, now 23.2).
  • As you may also have already extrapolated, being my best-ever January means this is the furthest I’ve ever reached by the end of January. It’s also the earliest I’ve passed the quarter-way point of #25, beating 6th February in 2016. (Though these days I’m ‘officially’ aiming for 120 Films in a Year, which makes the quarter-way point #30.)
  • As we know from past experience, trying to use any month to make a prediction about the whole year is futile. But, just for fun, if I kept up this rate for the entire year, I’d make it to #312. Well, never say never…
  • Another achievement: I watched a new film on January 5th for the first time in recorded history (i.e. since 2009, at least). Regular readers will know I’ve been tracking these ‘missing dates’ and ticking them off for a few years now (since July 2017, to be precise), and now there’s just May 23rd outstanding.
  • One thing I didn’t do this month was post any reviews of the films I watched. That comes after a 2020 where I performed similarly poorly in that regard, averaging 1.6 reviews a month of films I’d watched that month (it was zero or one review in eight months of last year, with better tallies in April, June, July, and August bolstering the average). At this rate, the 100-week roundups in 2022 are going to be chocka (heck, the 2021 ones are going to be pretty busy).
  • With Calling Dr. Death (#14), the Inner Sanctum Mysteries joins the list of film series I’m in the middle of watching, which currently numbers 23. I’ve got a list of them on Letterboxd, if you’re interested.
  • This month’s Blindspot film: Kenji Mizoguchi’s gut-punching folklore drama, Sansho Dayu (aka Sansho the Bailiff).
  • From last month’s “failures” I only watched WolfWalkers.



The 68th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Cartoon Saloon have produced several excellent movies, but WolfWalkers may be their best yet — gorgeously animated, an exciting adventure, with plenty of heart too. Such a shame it’s buried away on Apple TV+ where most people will never see it.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Wholly predictably, it’s Cats. I mean, really, did you expect anything else?

Worst Dinner Party of the Month
Sure, the antics of the couple at the heart of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? may be famously uncomfortable and wild and weird, but that’s nothing on standing up at your father’s birthday meal to announce to dozens of assembled friends and family that… well, that would be a spoiler. Suffice to say, Festen’s got this one.

Most Jingoistic Action Movie of the Month
Joint Security Area may deconstruct and expose the futility of war and nationalism, but that’s hardly stopped other action movies indulging in it aplenty. Under Siege comes with the prerequisite praising of America’s military might, but the villains are its own agents gone rogue, so at least there’s some acknowledgement of their own (potential) flaws. Wolf Warrior, on the other hand, sometimes borders on propaganda piece… although the fact they feel the need to send basically their entire army to track down a handful of insurgent mercenaries isn’t actually the great advertisement someone might’ve thought it was…

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Now, normally I’m quite strict about this category — which means that if, say, I post something on the last day of the month it basically stands no chance of making it, because it doesn’t have as much time to build up the hits. However, I published my review of Death to 2020 at 11pm on December 31st — having only a single hour to qualify for last month’s count seems a particularly unfair fate. So that’s why I’ve declared it this month’s winner, especially as it got more than four times the views of the ‘genuine winner’, my Christmas TV post. (Talking of “posts on the last day not doing well”, the TV column I posted yesterday afternoon amassed enough views in that short time to come a close-ish second/third, which just goes to show, um, something.)


In case you missed them, I began January with my usual extensive multi-post review of the previous year…

Now, as for actual film reviews…


A new year means a new Rewatchathon, too. My goal of 50 rewatches means I need to average four a month, so this year isn’t off to the best start…

#1 Happy Death Day (2017)
#2 Crimson Tide (1995)

I rewatched Happy Death Day immediately before its sequel (see #4 on the main list). Their shared “reliving the same day” conceit means the second film has a lot of references back to the first, so they work quite nicely as a double-bill.

I’ve fancied rewatching Crimson Tide for a while, but it never seems to be available anywhere, so I gave in and bought it from Apple — it was only 50p dearer than renting it. Then they went and announced the Disney+ Star slate and it’s going to be on there. Oh well.


With cinemas still shuttered here due to lockdown, it once again falls to streamers to provide the brand-new releases. Netflix are promising at least one original movie premiere every week throughout 2021 (with some 70-odd films coming in total). Once upon a time you would’ve assumed that was based on a technicality — i.e. lots of cheap made-for-TV-style filler to bolster the numbers — but, so far at least, they’ve been keeping the standard at a level of noteworthiness. For example, January’s offerings included the hard-hitting drama Pieces of a Woman, which comes with plenty of awards buzz; blockbuster-ish sci-fi action with Anthony ‘the Falcon’ Mackie in Outside the Wire; adaptations of bestselling books like The White Tiger and Penguin Bloom; and they even wheeled out that good old Brit-flick formula of quality actors + period setting in The Dig, with Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, and Lily James starring in a true story from the 1930s. Meanwhile, Amazon had Dave Franco’s directorial debut, The Rental. Not quite as high-profile a slate, eh.

In terms of catalogue stuff, it was really the TV catch-up services that were catching my eye in January, including Korean Cold War spy thriller The Spy Gone North on iPlayer, alongside acclaimed sports doc Hoop Dreams, Beatles classic A Hard Day’s Night, and recommended gambling drama Mississippi Grind. Over on All 4, I missed some classics I’ve been meaning to see for years, like Animal Farm and Withnail & I, but still available (for a few weeks yet) are the likes of A Taxi Driver starring Song Kang-ho, and Danish crime thriller The Guilty, which is currently being remade for Netflix by Antoine Fuqua and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Because I don’t have enough to watch as it is, this month I subscribed to MUBI. Okay, I have plenty to watch, but the offer of £1 for three months was hard to pass up — I mean, at that price, watch just one film and it was worth it. I’ve already watched a couple, but films on my watchlist for the remaining time of my cheap subscription include Bacurau, High Life, Paterson, Rocco and His Brothers, Transit, and… Showgirls. Yes, Showgirls is on MUBI.

None of which stopped me from buying more stuff on disc, of course. In terms of brand-new releases, I’ve got The New Mutants in 4K, Arrow’s new edition of Southland Tales (including the longer Cannes cut), and the bells-and-whistles-less 4K reissue of Total Recall (the 1990 one, obviously), plus Eureka’s release of the Inner Sanctum Mysteries, which I have at least started (see #14). Watching JSA (#13) inspired me to plug some of the gaps in my Park Chan-wook collection, so I picked up I’m a Cyborg and Thirst nice and cheap; and Kind Hearts and Coronets (#12) prompted me to buy StudioCanal’s bells-and-whistles-full 4K edition of The Ladykillers. Finally, thanks to an HMV sale I continued to fill out my Ray Harryhausen collection with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and The Valley of Gwangi. Between those and the various Indicator box sets, I’m only a couple away from owning all his feature film work. Just need to watch some more of them now…


Slightly belated UK releases for Promising Young Woman with Carey Mulligan, and Tom Hanks in Paul Greengrass’s News of the World. Hopefully I’ll have reviews of both.

The Personal History of January 2020

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We’re a whole month in — 2020 is properly underway!

The less said about yesterday’s biggest news the better, so I’m just gonna plow on into some films…


#1 Crooked House (2017)
#2 Evil Under the Sun (1982)
#3 Rocketman (2019)
#4 Little Women (2019)
#5 Dial M for Murder 3D (1954)
#6 1917 (2019)
#7 The Dead Don’t Die (2019)
#8 Dolemite Is My Name (2019)
#8a What Did Jack Do? (2017)
#9 Bait (2019)
#10 Ad Astra (2019)
#11 8½ (1963)
#12 Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), aka Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta
Rocketman

Laputa: Castle in the Sky

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  • As should be self-evident, I watched 12 new feature films in January.
  • I watched my first film on New Year’s Day — the first time that’s happened since 2016.
  • I watched my second film on January 2nd — the first time that’s happened since 2012.
  • I watched my third film on January 3rd — the first time that’s ever happened.
  • I watched my fourth film on January 8th — which doesn’t sound as remarkable, but it’s earlier than I watched last year’s #1.
  • By #8, I was ahead of every previous year. By #12, I was ahead of just 54% of them.
  • In terms of averages, 12 slightly beats the January average (previously 11.42, now 11.46), but is slightly behind the average for 2019 (12.6).
  • Dial M for Murder is the first 3D film I’ve watched since last May, eight months ago.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical search engine / hashtag nightmare of a title, 8½.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched just Little Women.



The 56th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I’m always wary of picking the last film I watched as my favourite of the month — I worry it’s just recency bias giving it a boost. And there are certainly other films I liked a lot this month — when I’ve settled on my final ratings, up to 50% of them will be getting full marks. But, eh, it’s just an opinion. So, for now, this month’s victor is a Miyazaki classic (of which there are so many!), Laputa: Castle in the Sky.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This is a very straightforward choice, though. I’d heard only terrible things about The Dead Don’t Die, but the trailer had looked such fun that I went ahead and rented it anyway. Sadly, it was the word of mouth that was accurate — it’s a dud.

Most Quotable Film of the Month
You might not expect a black-and-white hand-developed art-house-y drama about the plight of locals in a Cornish fishing village to be full of zingers, but there are loads of such memorable bits in Bait. My favourite? A barmaid watching a local bloke chat up a bit of posh totty from out of town: “He’s wasting his time with her… ‘ow’s she gonna suck his dick with that plum in ‘er mouth?”

Least Hashtag-Friendly Film of the Month
Continuing the theme of “recycling stuff I already put on Instagram”, you try and come up with a workable hashtag for 8½.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
This month’s winner slayed all before it to become, not just my most-read new post, but my most read post overall for last month (that happens quite rarely — just thrice last year, or 25% of the time). The post in question was my Christmas TV review. It received more than double the number of views as the post in second place (which was the previous TV review), a lot of that powered by referrals from IMDb for people wanting to read about Dracula. I hope I switched them on to The Goes Wrong Show while they were here… (The highest new film-related post was my review of The Personal History of David Copperfield.)



Last year’s Rewatchathon limped to an ignominious end (only just over half of my 50-film goal), but 2020’s is off to a solid start…

#1 Zatoichi at Large (1972)
#2 The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
#3 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
#4 Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
#5 Twin Peaks (1990), aka Twin Peaks: Pilot

Starting at the end, Twin Peaks — the original pilot, which I watched in UHD courtesy of the From Z to A box set. I was counting it as a film as part of a long-term setup for eventually including it on a list of my favourite films (oops, given the game away!)… but I feel less sure after watching it again. Not of its greatness — I still reckon it’s one of the very best episodes of TV ever made, with at least one sequence that’s among my favourites in the entire history of visual storytelling — but it’s so obviously a pilot; so made to set wheels in motion for a series to run with them over many more hours. Yeah, there’s the close-ended International Version, but that’s a bit of a mess. This is something I’ll continue to ponder on.

As for the picture quality of this UHD version, it’s unfortunately a mixed bag. Lynch chose not to use HDR here, apparently… though I don’t know if that’s been confirmed or if it’s accepted wisdom from the disc not playing with HDR. I say that because when I turned Dolby Vision on, it kicked in. So is the disc encoded for Dolby Vision but not normal HDR? Is that possible? Or was my player ‘faking it’? I don’t know enough about how HDR/DV works to answer that. Normally I have Dolby Vision switched off because I don’t like it (I don’t know if I just consider it inaccurate or if it’s my TV’s fault, not displaying it properly for some reason), and Twin Peaks did nothing to convince me I should change that. Mainly it just seemed to make things too dark, erasing detail in the shadows (I tried fiddling with my settings in case I’d set it up poorly, but that didn’t help). With or without DV, the pilot doesn’t look right. The resolution is good, with improved fine detail compared to the Blu-ray, so that’s nice; but the colours look far too pale. Considering classic Twin Peaks is renowned for its warm look, this is especially jarring. Some scenes — outdoor ones, mainly, where the colours are cooler anyway — look just fine, but others look thoroughly wrong. What’s really baffling is that Lynch supposedly supervised this new version, so it should be bang on; but I’m pretty sure he supervised the previous one too, so what’s gone awry? Whenever I next watch the pilot, I’m going to have a difficult choice on my hands: 4K for the base-level image quality, or 1080p for (what I think is) the correct colour balance. Argh!

As anyone au fait with the news has likely guessed, I watched Life of Brian in honour of Terry Jones. Plus, I’d been meaning to rewatch it ever since I watched Holy Grail last September. Like that film, it’s now down to get the “Guide To” treatment at some point.

Rather than regurgitate comments about my other rewatches, I’ll point you towards Letterboxd for my thoughts on The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and why I rewatched Zatoichi at Large when there are still several original Zatoichi films I’ve not seen.


2020 got off to a solid start, but there were still plenty of things I failed to see. On the big screen, I saw most of the stuff I really intended to — I’m happy to leave both Guy Ritchie’s latest, The Gentlemen, and belated trilogy-maker Bad Boys for Life until they reach rental. Speaking of which, I’ve got both Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale and Danny Boyle’s Yesterday sitting on my Amazon Prime Video account with the days ticking down — definites for next month, those.

In terms of new disc acquisitions, I watched a few as soon as they landed on my mat, but I went on a bit of a spending spree this month — a mix of new releases, random bargains, and having some vouchers to use up. In the former camp, the BFI’s new Blu-ray of Judgment at Nuremberg rubs shoulders with Arrow’s release of Black Angel, a film noir directed by Roy William “director of 11 Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films” Neill (which was recommended to me almost eight years ago by an esteemed fellow blogger, so it’s about time I got round to it).

The random bargains pile, meanwhile, is mostly made up of horror: the 101 Films Black Label edition of David Cronenberg’s Rabid; 88 Films’ box set of Hollow Man and Hollow Man II; and an import of Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D, which is meant to be absolutely terrible but, eh, I’m curious (it’s also only available in the UK on DVD or digital, neither of which are 3D, so I got the German one. The extras aren’t English-friendly, but I don’t reckon I’m ever likely to watch an hour-long making-of on this particular film). And in the “I had a voucher” camp, Don’t Look Now in its 4K limited edition form. Frankly, I’d’ve snaffled that up even without the voucher — it’s sold out online and so the price is beginning to rise on eBay and the like, but I happened across a single copy in a branch of HMV, where they were still charging the original price. The voucher comes into play because I wouldn’t even have been looking were it not for having an HMV voucher that expired the next day. So, that was nice.

And finally, the ever-burgeoning ranks of what’s available on streaming. Headliners this past month include In the Mood for Love cropping up on Prime Video — it’s one of the most acclaimed films of this century, but it never seems to be available in the UK, apart from an old DVD. It’s on my Blindspot list this year too, but I’d already got hold of it by, er, other means for that purpose. Other additions that drew my attention on Prime included Booksmart (particularly as I previously rented it but accidentally let the clock run out), Samuel Fuller’s The Naked Kiss, The Boondock Saints (one of those films I’ve heard of but don’t know much more about), and Jason Statham vehicle Wild Card — it’s been a while since I watched a run-of-the-mill Stath flick, so I feel overdue. Also overdue is a rewatch for Brokeback Mountain, which is also now on Prime here. Back in 2006 I was one of that rare breed who thought Crash was better. I didn’t hate Brokeback, but I didn’t like it much either. So, it’s long overdue that I revisit it and form a new opinion, now that I’m older and wiser.

Over on Netflix, the biggest hitter is probably Uncut Gems, which is one of this year’s many “should’ve had Oscar noms” films. But that only came out yesterday, so it’s not much of a “failure”… yet. Also catching my eye were Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (not to be confused with A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which is only just reaching UK cinemas) and Zhang Yimou’s Shadow. Plus they now have Phantom Thread, which I personally don’t intend to rewatch in anything less than 4K, but I mention its presence nonetheless because I highly recommend it.


Ghibli comes to Netflix! Well, not if you’re in North America, but for the rest of us: hooray!

…although I own Blu-rays of most of the ones I’m interested in seeing, I’ve just not got round to watching them yet, so their presence on Netflix isn’t likely to affect my viewing much at all. Hey-ho.

The Redefining Monthly Review of January 2019

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Here I go again: the 13th year of 100 Films in a Year!

Ah, “100” films… Once upon a time that goal was a challenge: in my first six years, although I did surpass it twice, I also only just reached it twice, and twice fell short. But since then things have improved considerably: in the last six years I’ve doubled it twice (and then some, in last year’s case), and twice more ended up closer to 200 than 100. I’ve also been reaching #100 quicker and quicker — it’s less “100 films in a year”, more “100 films in five or six months”.

That said, I’ve had a particularly good run of it in terms of free time the past couple of years, and I don’t know if that’s going to continue, so I’m loathe to boldly establish a brand-new goal for myself. Maybe next year. For the time being, my official target has technically changed, in a couple of ways. For one thing, the titular “100 films” have only ever included films I’ve not seen before, and consequently I often rewatched very little. Nowadays, I’ve countered that with my Rewatchathon (2019 being its the third year), which adds 50 films to my viewing goal. Secondly, I’ve watched at least ten new films every month since June 2014, and I intend to keep that up — and as there are 12 months in a year (did you know?), that rounds up my aim to 120 new films.

So I guess my official minimum goal is 170 Films in a Year. Doesn’t have the same catchy ring, does it? Especially as it should technically be 120 Films I Haven’t Seen and 50 I Have in a Year. Eesh.

Anyway, enough of that — let’s get properly started on 2019. Here are all the films I watched in the first 12th of this 13th year…


#1 Happy New Year, Colin Burstead (2018)
#2 Cool Hand Luke (1967)
#3 Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018), aka Gojira: Hoshi o Kuu Mono
#4 1941 (1979)
#5 Rambo (2008)
#6 The Stewardesses 3D (1969)
#6a Experiments in Love 3D (1977)
#6b La jetée (1962)
#7 Glass (2019)
#8 The Player (1992)
#9 The Happytime Murders (2018)
#10 Zatoichi Challenged (1967), aka Zatôichi chikemurikaidô
Rambo

The Player

.


  • So, I only watched ten new feature films in January.
  • That’s bang on my minimum goal, which is a good thing, but it also means January was my lowest month since September 2017, which is less good.
  • On a more positive note: since I started achieving a minimum of ten films per month year-round back in 2015, I’ve had no more than a single only-ten-films month each year (November in 2015, December in 2016, September in 2017, and none in 2018) — so maybe getting it out of the way in January bodes well for the rest of the year?
  • Also, while this may be the joint-lowest month of the past 4½ years, before then I regularly had sub-ten months. Indeed, pre-2014, 56% of months failed to reach double figures at all.
  • I didn’t watch a film on the 5th, one of the remaining dates on which I’ve ‘never’ watched a film. Two months in a row I’ve messed that up! I’ll have to be more attentive at the end of this year and the start of 2020…
  • In fact, I didn’t watch my first film until the 9th, which is the second latest start ever (in 2011 it was the 10th). That made the film in question — Happy New Year, Colin Burstead — feel somewhat ironic, what with it being, y’know, quite well past New Year by that point.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Robert Altman’s Hollywood satire cum neo-noir thriller, The Player.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Cool Hand Luke, which I had little choice about: no sooner had I included it in my 2019 selection because it was streaming on Amazon than I discovered it was to be removed a mere two days later! Just another reminder why relying on streaming services is a bad idea. Physical media 4eva!



The 44th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I found surprising depth in the fourth Rambo, and was one of the apparently-few people who didn’t walk away disappointed from Shyamalan’s trilogy-closing Glass, but this month’s winner has to be The Player. Mixing sharp Hollywood satire with a perverse respect for the wonders of Tinseltown, shaped into a neo-noir thriller storyline and delivered via bravura filmmaking, that includes a justifiably-famous opening oner, Robert Altman’s comeback film promised so much that I love in movies, and delivered on it all too.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I may’ve watched several notoriously bad films this month (Spielberg’s 1941, R-rated puppet flop The Happytime Murders, gimmicky 3D sexploitation The Stewardesses), but I actually enjoyed all of them on some level. No, this choice was easy. Apparently while promoting his latest film Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, director Ben Wheatley talked about it being his first movie where no one dies. Sure, no one in the film dies, but while watching it I became concerned that I might die from boredom.

Favourite Short Film of the Month
La jetée may be an innovative and influential arthouse sci-fi classic, but does it have full frontal nudity displayed in genuine 3D? No, no it does not. As I wrote on Letterboxd, “whether you want a little knowingly irreverent comedy, a cornucopia of 3D tricks, or some relatively explicit softcore porn, Experiments in Love has you covered.” It’s way more fun than it should be.

Most Explosive Orgasm by an Inanimate Object of the Month
I’m sorry to subject you to such crudeness, my dear, gentle readers, but here’s the thing: The Happytime Murders’ trailers made a fairly big deal of its puppet’s silly-string-spraying climax, but it was already beat by (once again) Experiments in Love. The latter features a huge retro computer, which for some reason speaks with a dodgy Japanese accent, and for even less reason has a grabby protuberance that tries to grope the film’s female characters, and which eventually gets very excited and, well, shall we say shoots off… directly at the camera lens, of course, because this is 3D. Take that, Gaspar Noé.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
I don’t always watch my stats closely, but sometimes something catches my eye. This month, my Christmas TV review soared to an early lead — TV posts are always popular, and this one went up on the 2nd, so it had almost the whole month to rack up hits. By the halfway point, it already looked unassailable. Then Glass came along, and while it didn’t do spectacular short-term numbers, a strong day-by-day count saw it creep up the chart — could it challenge, even surpass Christmas TV? Well, no — those numbers actually tailed off pretty sharpish, leaving the Past Christmas on TV this month’s clear victor. (Glass did come a respectable second though, far outstripping this month’s other TV post.)


Real life got in the way a bit this month, so it’s been a rather quiet one (this is my first post for 11 days!) Nonetheless, there’s still a chunk of stuff to recap. For starters, January began (as always) with my review of the previous year…

And then regular business brought this little lot…


While my main goal only just scraped to its minimum monthly target, my Rewatchathon began by exceeding it by 25%…

#1 Twelve Monkeys (1995)
#2 Unbreakable (2000)
#3 Ghostbusters (1984)
#4 Split (2016)
#5 Les Misérables (2012)

…of course, when your target is “four”, 25% is “one”. Sounds less grand like that, though.

At this point I’d normally share a thought or two about some or all of the above listed films, but instead I’m going to mention my Letterboxd account. My stats on the site inform me that I ‘review’ films on there about 50% of the time. Those aren’t proper reviews, mind — usually I’m aiming for a ‘witty’ comment, but sometimes it’s a quick initial impression, especially if a film really made me feel something (for good or ill). Sometimes those comments end up getting mixed into the full reviews I later post here; other times they don’t.

This month, I wrote something about each of my rewatches (hence why I’m mentioning this now), which you can locate quickly as follows: Twelve Monkeys, Unbreakable, Ghostbusters, Split, and Les Misérables.


Here’s a new regular section for 2019. (Assuming I always have something to say in it. If I don’t, I guess it’ll disappear again.) These are films I’d been specifically meaning to watch (or rewatch) this month, but for whatever reason didn’t get round to — my failures.

For January, this includes a tonne of stuff — I’m about to name 19 different titles, enough to almost triple the number I actually watched. (If that’s the kind of level I’m operating at, there probably will be something to say here every month!) Those include some much-discussed recent streaming releases (Roma, Bird Box); some Amazon rentals I got on the cheap (First Reformed, Leave No Trace, Mandy); some films I’ve been meaning to see for yonks that recently popped up on streaming services (Gods and Monsters, The Purge: Anarchy); recent Blu-ray purchases (One Cut of the Dead, Waterworld, Crimson Peak); at least one film I recorded off TV (The Eyes of Orson Welles); some new Blu-ray/rental releases that I haven’t actually purchased yet (Dave Made a Maze, The Predator); and anything at all on 4K Blu-ray — I got a player for Christmas, and I’ve set it up and watched a few bits and pieces as tests, but not a whole film. Top contenders for that honour include Escape from New York, Mission: Impossible I, II or Fallout, Blade Runner, and Blade Runner 2049.

One thing I can say: some of those will definitely be amongst next month’s viewing. I mean, if they’re not, I wasted money on those rentals…


It’s the shortest month of the year! Better pick up my average weekly viewing, then, or I won’t even make it to ten…