Tag Archives: July

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.

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.

The current big news on the big screen is undoubtedly Deadpool & Wolverine, which I might have actually gone to see if I hadn’t been busy this past weekend. Social media reaction seems divided: the fanboys love it (of course they do), while more serious-minded critics are cautious bordering on negative. I might still make the effort this coming weekend, or it might join the long list of post-Endgame MCU titles I just haven’t got round to. The fact it’s something oaan capstone to the Fox era of superhero movies sways me more in its favour, but still, we’ll see.

Also filling multiplexes were routine animated sequel Despicable Me 4 and belated, nostalgia-fuelled blockbuster sequel Twisters. I’ll inevitably catch both eventually, but I still haven’t seen the last Minions film and it took me a couple of decades to get round to the first Twister — which is no more than a perfectly adequate film — so I’m hardly in a rush. Of more interest are Kill, an Indian action film that I’ve heard is very good (to the extent that John Wick’s Chad Stahelski is already working on a US remake), and I Saw the TV Glow, which feels like it’s been attracting praise on Letterboxd forever but has only now made it to UK screens. Nonetheless, I’ll wait for discs on both of those (not least my local isn’t screening them). And further down my future watchlist, a pair of horrors: Longlegs, which seems to have provoked a lot of chatter, mainly about Nic Cage’s performance, which makes it interesting to me; and MaXXXine, but I’ve not seen X or Pearl yet so that one’s a ways down the list.

In theatrical-adjacent news, Amazon Prime Video finally brought Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare to the UK. All of Ritchie’s films seem to go direct to Amazon here these days, for good or ill. It’s a bit of a coin-toss whether I’ll get round to it anytime soon or not, but it’s definitely on the watchlist. Amazon seemed to be leading the way with original premieres this month, also debuting sequel My Spy: The Eternal City (I never caved to watching the original, even during the pandemic, so this is hardly a priority for me) and Space Cadet (this sounds kinda like “Legally Blonde in space”, which mildly tempts me, but reviews are terrible). All I have noted down for Netflix, on the other hand, is original anime The Imaginary. Sky / NOW also got in on the action with a modern-day kid-friendly spin on the Robin Hood legend, Robin and the Hoods; while I do believe Disney’s Young Woman and the Sea had some kind of theatrical release, but it was so limited that its Disney+ debut is basically a premiere.

Other films making their way to streaming post-theatrical included Wicked Little Letters on Netflix, which looks fun; The Iron Claw on Amazon, which seemed to attract positive buzz when it was in US cinemas; and on Sky / NOW, box office surprise smash romcom Anyone But You, the musical remake of Mean Girls, and Chinese animation (that I saw recommended somewhere) Deep Sea. Also Jericho Ridge, which I’d not heard of before it popped up on NOW, but its Assault on Precinct 13-esque premise sounded neat. And I don’t imagine it had a theatrical release, but it’s out on disc, so Amazon saved me having to pay for Bruceploitation (i.e. Bruce Lee exploitation) documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce. I say “saved” — that’s relative to me actually watching it before it’s inevitably removed one day…

There were back catalogue comings and goings a-go-go, of course, though what caught my eye this month was a large vein of things I’ve upgraded to 4K on disc but not (re)watched yet. Those included (deep breath) The Babadook, Black Hawk Down, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Deep Impact, Dr Who and the Daleks and its sequel, Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 AD, Drive, Enter the Dragon, the original Ghost in the Shell, Gladiator (really should revisit that before its sequel lands), The Green Mile, The Revenant, RoboCop (more on that later), RoboCop 2 (that too), The Shawshank Redemption, Top Gun: Maverick (which I also should’ve reviewed by now), and Training Day. Not to mention all the stuff I’ve just straight up bought on 4K and not watched yet, like Elvis, Possessor, The Sisters Brothers, and The Batman (it’s absolutely ridiculous that I still haven’t watched that). I expect I could generate a similarly lengthy list of films I own on unwatched Blu-rays that are now ‘free’ on streaming — though one that did stand out to me was Gravity, because it’s currently on both Amazon Prime and BBC iPlayer and it reminded me I’ve never watched it in 3D, despite owning a 3D TV for over seven years now. Same goes for Dredd (which was streaming on Channel 4 this month) and… well, plenty of other things (that aren’t currently streaming; and probably some that are).

None of which stops me buying piles of new discs, of course, including several that could feature in the above list — indeed, two do: RoboCop, which I finally picked up in Arrow’s recent sale; and the recently-released RoboCop 2 (from the US, because I did one of my bulk orders again). Other upgrades thanks to the Arrow sale included Time Bandits (it would’ve been neat to watch that before the new TV version started, wouldn’t it?) and Videodrome; while other 4Ks in that US order included giallo The Case of the Bloody Iris, an upgrade all the way from DVD for The Departed, and Criterion editions of I Am Cuba, McCabe & Mrs Miller, and The Red Shoes.

Back in the UK, 4K new releases included both brand-new titles like Alex Garland’s Civil War and Dev Patel’s Monkey Man (both of which I’m keen to see, so it’s daft they’re having to be featured here), plus new releases for older titles, like Second Sight’s A Bittersweet Life, Indicator’s Bruiser (which means I now own all of George A Romero’s feature films in HD or 4K), Arrow’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Curzon’s Memories of Murder.

Comparatively, I have very few regular ol’ HD titles to note. From Radiance’s latest slate, I limited myself to just Tai Kato’s Eighteen Years in Prison (yes, this is me trying to cut back), plus their partner label Raro Video’s release of Michael “Witchfinder General” Reeves’s Revenge of the Blood Beast (more commonly known online as The She Beast). I also finally upgraded classic TV series The Prisoner to HD, importing the recent Imprint release from Australia — it surely cost more than Network’s release would have back in the day, but that’s out of print (RIP Network) and at least this one comes with more special features (overall — it is missing a couple). Along with that, I finally stumped for an HD copy of the 2003 Zatoichi (there have been various releases, none of which seem to have the quite right PQ, but most of which do look better than my old DVD) and my most ridiculous purchase of the month, David Lynch’s Dune — ridiculous because I already own Arrow’s 4K release, but I bought this version for feature-length behind-the-scenes documentary The Sleeper Must Awaken: Making Dune. Was that a reasonable purchase? I guess it depends how good the doc is. I’ll have to actually watch it to find out.

The Mysterious Monthly Review of July 2024

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I know why you’re really here, dear reader. Films? Pfft! It’s for the latest update on how many hours of Critical Role I’ve watched, isn’t it?

Well, even if it isn’t, totting that up sparked something of a mystery for me this month. I don’t feel like it’s been a particularly unusual 31 days, and yet my Critical Role-related viewing was less than half that of June, meaning it was even below what I watched in April and May (though not quite back down to where I started in March).

Did that mean I reverted my viewing time to films? Nope! I’ve still only made it to ten new films this month (plus one rewatch for the Challenge), and even getting there included a little bit of a deliberate push over the last week. Perhaps it was TV, then? Well, I did watch a few classic Doctor Who serials — but even they only add up to about 7½ hours of viewing.

So where did my time go instead of any obvious options? No idea! Probably wasted it on Twitter or something. This is why I continue to benefit from the existence of the Challenge: to motivate me to stop wasting my time.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#50 Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024) — New Film #7
#51 Like Stars on Earth (2007) — WDYMYHS #6
#52 Alice (1988) —Failure #7
#53 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) — 50 Unseen #10
#54 Moana 3D (2016) — Rewatch #7
#55 Kung Fu Hustle (2004) — Genre #5
#56 The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) — WDYMYHS #7
#57 The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935) — Series Progression #8
#58 Army of Shadows (1969) — Blindspot #6


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in July.
  • Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • With Mutant Mayhem, 50 Unseen becomes my first completed category of this year’s challenge. In the end, 7 out of 10 films were from 2023’s list — which is fine. I mean, it’d be nice to watch more from older lists too, but it’s no surprise that the most recent list gets more focus. (Of course, more 50 Unseen films may still qualify (indeed, I hope they will) in the Wildcard category.)
  • Conversely, Genre has only just reached the halfway point. But at least that’s not too far behind where it should be. And there’s only been one Wildcard, but then that’s partly their point (i.e. to still be around towards the end for maximum flexibility).
  • This month’s Blindspot film was the first I’ve seen directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, namely his French Resistance thriller Army of Shadows.
  • That means I’m still behind with Blindspot (having missed it in May, I’ve still got one to catch up). But I’m currently kind of ok with that, because I realised that I have two horror films on the list (Possession and Rosemary’s Baby) so, consequently, October would be the best month for a double dose.
  • I did catch up on WDYMYHS this month, though. Those films were Bollywood dyslexia drama Like Stars on Earth and three-hour post-war romantic melodrama — and Best Picture winner — The Best Years of Our Lives.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Alice.



The 110th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
A tight race between two excellent films from the end of the month, here, but I’m going to give the edge to Army of Shadows because… I don’t know, probably because I watched it most recently. Maybe if they were the other way round, The Best Years of Our Lives would’ve snagged it. They’re both great, anyway.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
No outright duds this month — arguably The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes came closest, but it’s mostly fine with flaws inherited from the source novel. The reason it’s not my pick here is that it was about what I expected it to be, whereas I’d been somewhat looking forward to Kung Fu Hustle for some time, but found it to be a little disappointing. There’s some good kung fu sequences, but a lot of the humour didn’t land for me and the narrative felt like too much of a shaggy dog story.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Just two to choose from again this month (I really need to put some effort into reviews). The monthly review won last time; the time before was the failures; and the time before that was the monthly review again… This month, the pattern continues (or, you could argue, is properly established) thanks to a victory by June’s failures.


Disc releases of big films from earlier in the year are beginning to come through now, so hopefully I’ll finally start catching up on all those films I sort of intended to see at the cinema but couldn’t be bothered to.

The Cinematic Monthly Review of July 2023

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For a self-avowed film fan and film blogger, I don’t get to the cinema all that much. From the 16 completed years of this blog (2007–2022), only three have a number of cinema visits in double figures, and only two of those exceed a once-per-month average. Long-time readers may remember that I didn’t go at all in 2013 or 2014.

In that respect, 2020 was shaping up nicely — I’d been four times by the end of February, and if I’d continued at that kind of rate it would’ve been a personal record-breaker — and then the pandemic happened. I was lured back late in 2021 for Bond and then Dune, but then another lull kicked in: for one reason or another, I didn’t make it out to anything else for almost two years, until this very month.

And then, a few days later, I went again.

And the week after that, I went again.

I didn’t do Barbenheimer, though.

So I’ve already beaten 2022 (zero) and 2021 (two), and just one more trip will equal 2020 (four). (Now, if only I’d done Barbenheimer…) I can’t see myself going often enough across the rest of the year to reach the giddy heights of 2019 (which holds the record for my blogging era, on 19. Somewhat ironically, I went to the cinema a lot more often in the early/mid ’00s, just before I started this blog. If I’d been doing this in 2005 and 2006, those years would likely be stuffed to the gills with cinema trips. Or maybe I didn’t go quite as often as I thought and having historical stats would reveal that? I guess we’ll never know… unless I went back through the films released in those years and I worked out how many I saw on the big screen. Sounds like a lot of effort. But now that I’ve thought of it…)

Anyway, hurrah for my return to the cinema! It’s quite good, isn’t it?



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#47 Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (2022) — Failure #7
#48 John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) — New Film #6
#49 Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) — New Film #7
#50 Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) — Wildcard #4
#51 Santo vs. Infernal Men (1961) — Series Progression #9
#52 Oppenheimer (2023) — Wildcard #5
#53 Living (2022) — Wildcard #6
#54 Night and the City (1950) — WDYMYHS #5
#55 The Asphalt Jungle (1950) — WDYMYHS #6
#56 Sweet Smell of Success (1957) — WDYMYHS #7
#57 Beau Travail (1999) — Blindspot #7
#58 Black Dynamite (2009) — Rewatch #7


  • I watched 14 feature films I’d never seen before in July.
  • As regular readers will know, I aim to achieve at least 10 first time watches every month, so hurrah — especially as that’s just the second time I’ve managed it in 2023, and only the third time in the last 12 months.
  • 11 of those films counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • If you check out my Recently Watched page, you’ll see three rewatches scatted amongst this month’s first-time watches. Why didn’t the other two count? The other two were stumbled upon on TV and, in one respect or another, only half watched; and yet, that half was enough to feel like I’d seen them again… sort of. Not like a full rewatch, really (hence why I didn’t allow them to count), but enough of a refresher that, if I ever watch either of them again, I don’t expect it to feel like a “second watch”. (For more philosophical musings along these lines, check out my reviews of the pair on Letterboxd.)
  • More importantly from my Challenge, reaching #58 means I’m back on target. That’s after ending the last two months behind. And it’s actually nearly three months that I’ve been lagging: the last time I was on target was 7th May.
  • Part of that was achieved via the use of three Wildcards. I didn’t necessarily want to burn through my Wildcards in the middle of the year; but, equally, I don’t have to save them for the end. And as I seemed to be struggling to watch other Challenge-qualifying films, I need the numbers where I can get ’em.
  • Under the Challenge rules, I should count one New Film a month. This month, there are four. I didn’t log one in May, so that needed catching up; then there’s the one for June; and then two more as Wildcards. I didn’t watch that many brand-new films in the first half of the year (just enough to keep the category ticking over), so it’s kind of nice to feel so inundated. Also, I’ve got loads to catch up on!
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Claire Denis’s Beau Travail, keeping that category on track too.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS films were archetypal heist thriller The Asphalt Jungle, London-set Night and the City, and battling newspapermen in Sweet Smell of Success. And watching three here means this category is back on track too, as per the catchup for Blindspot I wrote about last month.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, John Wick: Chapter 4, Living, and Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical.



The 98th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
If you’d asked me to predict this category before the month began, I’d’ve said M:I-7 was a strong frontrunner. But, while I did enjoy it a lot, I didn’t think it was good as the last two in the series (though I have a feeling I’m going to appreciate it more on a rewatch, divorced from all the expectation); plus, I happened to watch several other exceptionally great films this month, to the extent it was never really in contention here. Indeed, two other 2023 releases rose above it (namely, John Wick: Chapter 4 and Oppenheimer). In the end, I’m going to plump for an older film, because I greatly admired Jules Dassin’s British noir, Night and the City. (I have a sneaking suspicion those three films may end up getting rearranged somewhat by the time I get to my end-of-year best-of, but you never know. Only time will tell.)

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This is a little easier. Really speaking, it should be one of the two Santo films I watched this month. I kinda enjoyed them, but they’re not good, especially compared to everything else. That said, I did enjoy them, which isn’t necessarily true of Beau Travail. Saying Denis’s film is worse than any Santo flick would sound ridiculous to most cinephiles — objectively (in as much as art can be judged objectively), it’s a better film. But, while I did like or admire parts of it, it’s not really to my taste; and even though they’re trashy and poorly made, I ultimately got more enjoyment from the Santo films.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Here’s a date for your diary: August 22nd. That’s the six-month anniversary of the last film review posted here. I had the best of intentions this month — having seen the likes of Indy 5, M:I-7 and Oppenheimer at the cinema, I wanted to review them promptly — but… well, it didn’t happen, did it? And so, for the fifth month in a row, this award has just two posts to choose from; and, once again, neither performed spectacularly on the chart. That said, one did do notably better than the other. When I turned my “failures” section into a series of standalone posts (back in February 2022), they were initially much more popular than the monthly reviews they’d spun out of. At this point, the tables have quite firmly turned. Yes, the victor here is my June monthly review.


It’s the 200th month of 100 Films!

And it looks set to be a challenge to my Challenge — having just got back on track, I’ve now got a busy work and personal calendar that’s liable to get in the way of film watching. Oh no! Can I nonetheless make it to my August target of #66? Join me in 31 days to find out. (Ooh, such drama!)

July’s Failures

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As readers of my monthly review will likely have already gathered, I didn’t go to the cinema this month. Well, if I didn’t make it out for some of the big hitters earlier in the year, I wasn’t likely to be tempted by the poorly-reviewed Thor: Love and Thunder or kiddie sequel Minions: The Rise of Gru, was I? (I actually quite enjoyed the first Minions film, to my surprise, but I’m still not paying cinema prices for the sequel. Happy to wait for it to be free someplace.) Other big screen offerings this month included The Railway Children Return (never seen the original), Where the Crawdads Sing (couldn’t tell you anything about that), and DC’s League of Super-Pets (a box office flop, apparently).

Also in cinemas — then on streaming a week later — were a pair of Netflix original movies. You don’t need to have even read Jane Austen to realise that Persuasion is not particularly faithful, even just from watching its trailer; and if you are a fan of Austen, apparently it’s a travesty. I may end up watching it at some point out of morbid curiosity, but I’m in no rush. Then there was action-thriller The Gray Man, which seems to have received universally mid to poor reviews, but which I know I’ll end up giving my time to someday. You never know: plenty of people seemed to hate Michael Bay’s Netflix movie, 6 Underground, and I found it passingly fun, so there’s always hope.

Other premieres further down the streaming hierarchy (as in, I don’t think they were granted theatrical releases) included The Sea Beast, a fantasy animation with “How to Train Your Dragon at sea” vibes that looks like it might be fun; and Rogue Agent, which is apparently a true story about a conman pretending to be an MI5 agent, starring James Norton and Gemma Arterton. I presume that one can’t be very good, because it’s had zero press that I’ve seen, but it sounds up my street. (Mind you, it’s not out in the US until 12th August, where it’s apparently getting a limited theatrical release, so if there’s any buzz to be had I guess it’ll come when US critics get their hands on it.)

As for Amazon Prime, it seems the best they could offer in the film department was remake Most Dangerous Game. Billed as a “new movie”, it turns out it was originally a Quibi series in 2020 (they never even tried to launch Quibi in the UK, so anything on there has had zero cultural footprint in the UK; which, as I understand it, is roughly the same as the cultural footprint it left in the US). As it has somewhat starry names (Liam “that’s the one who isn’t Thor” Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz), I guess someone felt it was worthwhile to repackage it as a feature film for Amazon. But before they go that far, as a series it moved to The Roku Channel, who commissioned a second season — assuming that goes ahead, I guess we might be treated to a ‘sequel’ someday. Maybe Amazon are on to something after all.

As I mentioned last month, I’ve dropped many streaming services I was subscribed to. The subscriptions for a couple of them lasted into this month — Disney+, for example, on which I could’ve watched the likes of The Princess or Flee if I’d pulled my finger out in time. (Though Flee was added on the very day my sub ended. After hearing about how good it is on Letterboxd for what feels like years, for it to finally be available to me — only to immediately not be — felt bloody typical.) Over on MUBI, there was acclaimed Nick Cave doc This Much I Know To Be True, but I never got round to the last acclaimed Nick Cave doc (One More Time With Feeling), so I feel I should see that first (probably doesn’t really matter, but you never know). Other titles of note included Paul Verhoeven’s sexy nun flick Benedetta; drama Bergman Island (it’s surely some kind of arthouse Inception when an arthouse film about the work of a famous arthouse filmmaker is available on the arthouse film streamer); Cold War (which I think is still available someplace else anyhow); and — a true rarity — titles streaming on MUBI that I own on disc! Namely, Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin and Mountains May Depart (I have Arrow’s box set; indeed, I mentioned it in June 2019’s failures. Over three years ago… jeez…

Speaking of box sets, on to the latest stuff I’ve been buying on disc, ready to leave on my shelf for years (or decades) to come before I finally watch it (maybe). This month’s brand-new releases included Everything Everywhere All at Once (imported, because there’s no UK disc release even scheduled currently), Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (what can I say? I’ve got to complete the set), The Northman, and anime Belle — all in 4K, naturally. And that’s not the end of it, because catalogue titles in 4K included Okja (also imported, because Criterion aren’t bothering to release on 4K over here, even though they’re region free so they could literally just send us the discs they’ve printed for the US); Out of Sight (also imported); Arrow’s new edition of Tenebrae (I’ve not bothered with all of their Argento 4K upgrades, but this is a significant do-over from the Blu-ray in terms of extras and packaging, no matter what the film’s PQ is like); also from Arrow, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (waited for that one to be discounted); Red Sonja (which StudioCanal didn’t see fit to give their box-o’-tat treatment, probably wisely); but they did do one for the second Doctor Who movie, Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., and of course I bought it; and, finally, Second Sight’s lavish edition of The Witch (which, in my head, I still call The V-vitch).

I think I’ve mentioned before that my strategy for importing from the US these days is wait until I’ve built up quite a few titles I’m interested in, then order them in bulk. That spreads the postage thinner and, it seems, on the site I regularly use, if you spend enough then you dodge them adding a VAT charge (gasp!) So, alongside the aforementioned US 4K titles, I picked up Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman (the last Batman: The Animated Series-adjacent movie I hadn’t upgraded from DVD); Warner Archive releases of Drunken Master II and the 1951 Show Boat (never let it be said my taste is not varied); Flicker Alley’s releases of rare noir Repeat Performance and In the Shadow of Hollywood, a box set of Poverty Row titles; anime Vampire Hunter D (to go with its sequel, Bloodlust, which I bought the UK edition of years ago; no local release of the original has been forthcoming); and… Zebraman. Total punt, that, but I happened to see someone review it on Letterboxd and it sounded awesome. Yeah, that’s all it takes to get me to fork over the cash sometimes.

That should be more than enough… but no, my lack of self control knows no bounds. For new releases of catalogue titles, well, I can scarcely resist a Shaw Brothers film nowadays, so of course 88 Films got me with Martial Club, and also The Seventh Curse; while Eureka tempted me with a trio of old Universal horrors in their Boris Karloff-starring Universal Terror set. And then there were the sales! From Dogwoof, documentaries Max Richter’s Sleep (the concept of which fascinates me, so a doc on it seems a good punt) and David Byrne’s American Utopia (a doc in technicality only, because it’s a concert film; one I adored). And HMV had one of their regular 2-for-£15 offers on their Premium Collection range, and (as usual) I couldn’t resist. Four titles this time: more Jackie Chan in Mr. Nice Guy; more noir in The Set-Up; more classic horror in The Mystery of the Wax Museum; and an upgrade from my old two-disc DVD for A Streetcar Named Desire.

Now, that’s plenty, right? …right? Nah, we haven’t even got to the stuff I bought on a random whim yet! Brothers Till We Die, In the Cold of the Night, Knight and Day, Sorcerer… Sometimes I think I might have a problem…

The Melting Monthly Review of July 2022

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Hello, dear readers! No, this month’s heatwave didn’t melt me away to nothing (though it tried its damnedest), but this is a rare sighting of a post on this blog nowadays. I hadn’t intended to be so quiet this month (well, I never do), but, you know, life. Nothing serious, just a mixture of work and personal commitments.

It’s been the same story with my film viewing, which once again fell short of my ongoing aim of watching at least ten new films a month. And as for my 100 Films Challenge, well, that’s way behind where it should be. To reach #100 in December at a steady pace, I should be at #58 by the end of July. As you’ll soon see, I’m not even close.

What I did spend a fair amount of time on this month was catching up with TV — things like Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, which I seemed to enjoy more than most, and Apple TV+ spy thriller Slow Horses, which is as good as the reviews say — so I intend to refocus on films in August. We’ll see how that pans out.



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#44 Ambulance (2022) — New Film #7
#45 Johnny Gunman (1957) — Genre #3
#46 A Better Tomorrow (1986) — WDYMYHS #6
#47 Mifune: The Last Samurai (2015) — DVD #4
#48 Calamity Jane (1953) — Rewatch #7


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in July.
  • Four of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • Those are the kinds of numbers there’s not much to say about: they’re nothing special, but they’re not spectacularly bad, either.
  • That said, I’ve slipped further behind in my 100 Films Challenge — as I noted at the start, I should be at #58 by now. I now need to watch, on average, more than 10 qualifying films each month for the rest of the year to complete the challenge.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was John Woo’s classic action-thriller that defined the ‘heroic bloodshed’ subgenre, A Better Tomorrow.
  • I remain a film behind in my WDYMYHS challenge, and now the same is true of Blindspot too, as I didn’t watch one of those this month. At least there’s still five months left for me to catch up.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Ambulance.



The 86th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
When Michael Bay is on form, there’s no action director quite like him — and, for my money, Ambulance is Michael Bay very much on form.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Nothing absolutely terrible this month, which leads me to name Johnny Gunman for this category. It suffers for being a low-budget independent film in an era when low-budget independent films weren’t really yet a thing — it’s solid enough for the forgiving viewer, but does suffer from some weak acting and novice-like filmmaking choices. I didn’t dislike it, but, in the context of the rest of this month’s viewing, it doesn’t quite measure up.

Bickering Old People of the Month
45 Years depicts a couple’s sudden relationship difficulties after four-and-a-half decades of marriage with such scathing realism that I have to give this to The Bucket List for being fun bickering. But I think we all know which is the better film, really. Only one of them is in the Criterion Collection, after all.

Best Weather of the Month
A scathingly realistic drama about a couple having sudden relationship difficulties after four-and-a-half decades of marriage, in part because their emotional communication is inadequate, set in grey, misty, wintry countryside? 45 Years is British through and through, not least that weather. Oh, it looked so beautiful, especially watching it on a hot summer day — personally, I long for our winter to come again.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
After a couple of months where this category has been dominated by my ‘failures’ posts, they dipped to second place in July. Instead, the victor was something of a surprise, but a pleasant one: my review of undeservedly forgotten 1930s melodrama Bank Holiday.



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


More films, hopefully.

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Monthly Review of July 2020

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Man, 2020 is non-stop!

If you’ve come here from a tweet or email link, we’re three sentences in and had three Hamilton references already. Well, I did draft about half-a-dozen Hamilton-related titles for this review, so a few more may sneak in yet. While I devote my energies to thinking of some, let’s get on with the usual business…


#156 The Ipcress File (1965)
#157 Hamilton (2020)
#158 Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
#159 A Dog’s Will (2000), aka O Auto da Compadecida
#159a David Lynch Cooks Quinoa (2007)
#160 Make Mine Music (1946)
#161 Chariots of Fire (1981)
#162 The Old Guard (2020)
#163 Palm Springs (2020)
#164 Greyhound (2020)
#165 The Scorpion King (2002)
#166 Dangal (2016)
#167 The Lighthouse (2019)
#168 Melody Time (1948)
#169 Fun & Fancy Free (1947)
#170 Uncut Gems (2019)
#171 Lady Bird (2017)
#172 Safety Last! (1923)
#173 Love on a Leash (2011)
#174 The Wolf’s Call (2019), aka Le chant du loup
#175 Hunter Killer (2018)
#176 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
#177 Le Mans ’66 (2019), aka Ford v Ferrari
#178 Bloodshot (2020)
#179 Der Hund von Baskerville (1914), aka The Hound of the Baskervilles
#180 The French Connection (1971)
#181 Venom (2018)
#182 Spaceship Earth (2020)
#183 Clueless (1995)
#184 Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
Hamilton

Palm Springs

Safety Last!

Spaceship Earth

.


  • I watched 29 new feature films in July.
  • That makes it my third best month of 2020; but, more impressively, it’s also my sixth best month ever — out of 163 months, that puts it in the top 4%.
  • It’s also my fifth month in a row with over 20 films, which is my second-longest run of 20+ months, right behind the six months from February to July 2018.
  • It also finally pulls July’s all-time average up above 10.0. I’ve been looking to get all the months’ averages up that high for years, and July has been the real hold-out (it didn’t help that in 2009 its total was 0). In fact, it’s now 11.0, meaning all months are at 11+ except for November — but having them all above 10 is fine; I’m not going to actively try to pull them up anymore.
  • In terms of other averages, it bests both the average for 2020 to date (previously 25.8, now 26.3) and the rolling average of the last 12 months (previously 17.3, now 19.3).
  • #184 is the furthest I’ve reached by the end of July, beating the next best by 11 films. In fact, compared to my worst-ever year (2009), I’m 146 ahead.
  • It also means I’ve already passed 2017’s final total, guaranteeing 2020 an all-time rank of at least third. With five months of the year left, I only need to watch 18 more films for second — that seems all but guaranteed, though never say never. For first place it’s 79 more, an average of 16 a month — at my current rate, eminently plausible; but last year I watched 48 films in that timespan, so (again) never say never.
  • Back in April, I identified the handful of years from which I’d never seen a feature film. I crossed off two more of those this month, thanks to Safety Last! for 1923 and Der Hund von Baskerville for 1914. That just leaves 1912 and 1915.
  • And talking of completing years, Lady Bird and Le Mans ’66 mean I’ve completed the Oscar Best Picture nominees from 2018 and 2020, respectively. I just need one more (Vice from 2019) to complete the last five years. I was obviously less circumspect earlier in the decade, though, because to complete back to 2011 I need a further ten films.
  • This month’s Blindspot film: an archetypal ’70s crime thriller with a noir vibe, The French Connection — and it’s as good as that sounds. Plus one from my overflow list, ’60s anti-Bond spy thriller The Ipcress File — which, sadly, I was a little underwhelmed by (primarily because I expect to adore it, though; it is very good).
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Lighthouse.



The 62nd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Debate may have raged in some places about whether it should count as a film or not, but clearly I’m going with “does count”, and therefore I get to declare Hamilton my favourite of the month. It’s also currently the 26th best film of all time on IMDb’s top list, so I’m clearly not alone.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I watched three submarine-related movies this month: Greyhound because it was new, but that gave me an itch to watch a ‘proper’ submarine movie, and French thriller The Wolf’s Call was already on my watchlist, and that was so enjoyable that I still fancied more after that, so I turned to Hunter Killer — which I shouldn’t have, because it’s awful.

Worst Understanding of Geography of the Month
We turn again to Hunter Killer for an entertaining bit of “American filmmakers not understanding foreign geography”. Gerard Butler’s submarine captain is picked up by helicopter while on a hunting holiday in the Scottish highlands, to take him to his sub at the naval docks in Faslane — about 80 miles away. We next see him at Faslane, where his XO asks how was his trip in from Portsmouth, another major naval port in the UK. So, if that’s right, he went from the highlands to Portsmouth and then to Faslane — a 1,000-mile round trip. I guess no one on that film bothered to look at a map…

Best Song Not in Hamilton of the Month
Apologies to the four Disney musicals that I watched, plus any original songs cropping up in any of the other films I watched, but not much can beat the little ditties sung by the canine hero of Love on a Leash. “King of the castle! / King of the castle that’s also a dog / And lives in a house that is green. / What is that about?” Lin-Manuel Miranda must be quaking in his boots.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
One of the most widely-popular cultural phenomena of our time, finally made available to a wide audience of both die-hard fans and the curious, and my review has had almost the whole month to accumulate hits. Yes, entirely predictably (to the extent that I wrote this blurb on the 5th and haven’t touched a word of it), July’s most-viewed new post was Hamilton.

That said, The Old Guard ended up coming pretty close; and they were both beaten by last month’s #1, my review of Netflix’s Eurovision movie, which is on track to be my most popular film review of 2020 (though who knows what the rest of the year will bring…)



My Rewatchathon continues to be a month ahead of pace, with #33 being where I should’ve reached by the end of August.

#31 The Princess Bride (1987)
#32 Hamilton (2020)
#33 The Woman in Green (1945)

Regular readers will know I’m not a huge re-watcher (hence the Rewatchathon) — if I watch a film again within about five years I consider it “soon” — and yet here I am watching Hamilton twice in a month. Well, you put it on just to watch a bit and then you can’t stop. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns up in 2020’s Rewatchathon again yet…

I’ve rewatched The Princess Bride twice now without adding it to my “Guide To” series. It’s not like I haven’t got a big enough backlog anyway, right? I expect I’ll cover it someday. For now, I naturally posted some thoughts on Letterboxd after my most recent viewing.

The Woman in Green continues my rewatch of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series. I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as I’d remembered — it has some great ideas and good sequences, but it somehow doesn’t gel as well as it should on this viewing. Nonetheless, there’s enough to admire that I still rate it pretty highly, including Henry Daniell as the series’ best Moriarty.


Cinemas may still be mostly closed, and consequently there’s a shortage of new releases, but that certainly hasn’t stopped the streamers pumping out content, both new exclusives and archive titles (indeed, that’s probably why they are). Top of the pops for brand-new stuff this month was a Bollywood film, Dil Bechara, which catapulted to the top of the IMDb Top 250 chart thanks to eager fans rating it highly. The algorithm kicked in and it plummeted right back off it again, but in terms of raw numbers it’s still right up there. It’s streaming free on Hotstar if you want to see if it lives up to the fuss.

As I said, the regular streamers piled on the content this month, more so Amazon than Netflix, with originals like How to Build a Girl and Honey Boy, the subscription debuts of theatrical films like Midway and Knives Out, and archive titles like 1947 Best Picture winner The Best Years of Our Lives and 1985 contender The Killing Fields They also briefly had the new Charlie’s Angels, for about 24 hours before someone realised the mistake — it was due on Sky Cinema / Now TV about a week later. Perhaps that means it’ll be coming to Amazon eventually; perhaps someone just pressed the wrong button. Also catching my eye was The Mask of Zorro in 4K. That came out on disc in the US back in May, but we haven’t been so lucky. I hope that changes, because it’s a great film and the new transfer looks far superior to the old Blu-ray, but until then I might just watch it on Amazon. They also have the sequel, The Legend of Zorro, also in 4K, which hasn’t been treated to a disc release anywhere, probably because of it’s poor reputation. I don’t think I’ve seen it since the cinema in 2005 (even though I own it on DVD), so it’s due a revisit.

Amazon have also had a load more of their discounted-for-Prime-members rentals recently, so I’ve stocked up on the likes of The Assistant, Bad Boys for Life, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Color Out of Space, and Never Rarely Sometimes Always. All of those should feature in August’s viewing. I’ve also been tempted to splash the cash on plenty of Blu-rays, thanks to endless sales and offers. Barnes & Noble aren’t currently shipping to the UK, so I’ve missed out on their biannual Criterion sale, but I was so set for it that I forked out a bit more to get the titles from Amazon US (who don’t price match the sale, but get pretty close). Stock issues mean that order hasn’t even dispatched yet, so hopefully next month. Sales that have tempted me and have arrived include from Arrow (The Andromeda Strain, Aniara, Crime and Punishment, Hitchcock’s Jamaica Inn, and Zardoz), HMV’s Premium Collection (two more Hitchcocks, I Confess and The Wrong Man, plus Key Largo, The Thing from Another World, To Have and Have Not, and Wait Until Dark), and Zoom (4K upgrades for Arrival, The Revenant, and Split). And talking of things to 4K, films to rewatch, and imports, I snagged the US 4K release of Parasite. I doubt we’re going to get treated to that in the UK, and the recently-announced Criterion release won’t be 4K. I might still get it for the special features, though.

And if that wasn’t enough, I also picked up some new releases, including Master of Cinema’s set of three Edgar Allen Poe adaptations starring Bela Lugosi, those being The Raven, Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Black Cat, which is noteworthy for being the fifth adaptation of that short story that I own (and I haven’t watched any of them!)


Tenet.

Or maybe not. Who knows what state we’ll be in by the time that’s due at the end of the month?

The Eleventy-First Monthly Review of July 2019

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I’ve been writing 100 Films for 151 months now, but I only instituted these monthly progress reports in May 2010 — and that makes this the 111th one! I think that’s worthy of a Hobbity celebration…

I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Coincidentally, it’s also the 50th month of these “new look” monthly updates (the ones with the funny titles and all the formal sections), which means it’s also the 50th iteration of my Arbie Awards. You can see how I’ve honoured that special occasion when you reach the relevant section.

But before that, there’s this…


#99 Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (1971), aka Shin Zatôichi: Yabure! Tôjinken
#100 The Killer (1989), aka Dip huet seung hung
#101 Toy Story 4 (2019)
#102 Sherlock Jr. (1924)
#103 The Lion King (2019)
The Killer
.


  • So, I watched just five feature films in July.
  • That continues my new fewer-than-10-films-per-month streak. Once upon a time such numbers were my norm (from 2008-2013, 58% of months had 9 or fewer films), but for the past few years it, er, really wasn’t (in 2014-2018, 95% of months had 10 or more films).
  • My longest previous fewer-than-ten streak was 7 months, from June to December 2011. If 2019 continues the way it’s going, it could replicate that exactly. But, equally, a lot can change: at the end of July 2016 I was at #127 and went on to finish the year with 195, and in July 2017 I was at #107 and ended on 174; but July 2015 was lower than both of those, ending at #102, and I went on to reach 200. So while I’ll be very surprised if 2019 even comes close to last year’s 261, never say never.
  • In terms of averages, it’s distinctly less heartening. It takes the average for July down from 9.9 to 9.5, leaving it as the only month with an average lower than 10. It also brings the 2019-to-date average down from 16.3 to 14.7, and the rolling average of the last 12 months down from 17.8 to 15.9.
  • Of of the five films I did watch, one was #100 — later than I’d anticipated, because my underwhelming June tally didn’t get me there, but still the 3rd earliest #100 ever (behind 2018 (10th May) and 2016 (28th May), and ahead of 2017 (15th July)).
  • It was a double catch-up for last month, too: I missed my should-be-monthly Blindspot film in June, so made a selection from that list to be 2019’s illustrious #100. My pick was John Woo’s career-defining heroic bloodshot classic The Killer. Still holds up today, for my money. It’d be nice if we could get a quality Blu-ray release of it, though.
  • And this month’s WDYMYHS film was Buster Keaton’s slapstick classic Sherlock Jr. At 45 minutes, it’s just long enough to qualify as a feature rather than a short. As well as the comedy, it has madcap stunts Tom Cruise would be proud of, and technical effects that still hold up almost 100 years later.
  • Finally, from last month’s “failures” I watched only Toy Story 4. Well, one is better than none…



The 50th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

It’s the 50th Arbie Awards! In honour of that milestone, I’m… not doing anything special whatsoever. So let’s get on with this:

Favourite Film of the Month
Not much to choose from, though I did really enjoy almost all of the limited selection of films I did watch. The winner, though, is an action movie… and also a comedy: Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr., which (as I said above) is not only very funny but also technically audacious and full of daredevil stunts.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This is an easy pick. I didn’t hate it, but I was certainly left underwhelmed by Jon Favreau’s too-faithful live-action animated remake of animation The Lion King.

Song That Should’ve Been Retitled of the Month
Can You Feel the Love Tonight This Afternoon?

Joke I Stole from Letterboxd of the Month
See above + here.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
It was a relatively meagre month for new posts. Well, in fact, there were 10, and my average for the first six months of 2019 was 13, so maybe not so relatively low after all. Whatever, none of those new posts challenged archival ones for popularity: this month’s victor may’ve been a Netflix new release (outside the US) but it only came 39th overall. Perhaps Shaft isn’t the man after all.



I didn’t rewatch a single film last month, which means I’ve got a mountain to climb to get to my goal of 50 rewatches this year — and July is barely helping…

#21 Die Another Day (2002)

To stay on target I should be on about #28 by this point. Oh dear. And the one I did watch was a fluke: I happened across it on TV the other day and ended up sucked in. So, okay, I didn’t really watch it — certainly not all of it — but I did see a fair bit of it; probably a comparable amount to when I caught Skyfall on TV last year, and I counted that, so here it is. I’m still intending to re-watch all of Bond properly at some point (or at least pick up where I left off, which was with OHMSS); but then I’ve been meaning to do that ever since the Bond 50 Blu-ray set came out in 2012…


I made a couple of trips to the cinema this month, but I still missed some big titles — primarily, Spider-Man: Far from Home. There was also Richard Curtis/Danny Boyle/Beatles comedy Yesterday (which actually came out in June, but I didn’t mention it last month), and smaller releases (which therefore weren’t necessarily playing near me or at accessible times) like Midsommar and The Dead Don’t Die. (If you’re a US-based reader wondering why I haven’t mentioned Quentin Tarantino’s successful new film, it’s not out here for another two weeks.)

Last month I noted that some cinema misses from February had now made it to disc, where I’d missed them again. That’s also true this month, with the release of Alita: Battle Angel. The same was true of Dumbo, though that was from my April failures — the fact it and Alita have now reached disc at about the same time shows something about the vagaries of release windows, I guess. Finally on disc, a rewatch candidate: Captain Marvel (not that I’ve posted a review from when I saw it in the cinema yet).

The noisiest releases on streaming this month were TV series, but a couple of Amazon co-productions came to Prime Video: Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, and Beautiful Boy, with a BAFTA-nominated performance from Timothée Chalamet. As for Netflix, they offered doc The Great Hack, about the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which is the kind of thing that’s destined to sit on my watch list for ever and a day. They also threw up some stuff I missed from last year in the form of Paul Feig’s black-comedy mystery A Simple Favour and acclaimed comedy-drama Blindspotting.


So, in conclusion, July’s prospects were marred by my being away on holiday for almost half the month. Perhaps that means August will see things perk up again…

The Mission: Obviously Possible Monthly Update for July 2018

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Dun dun dun-dun-dundun, dun-dun-dundun, dun-dun-dundun, dun-dun… duh-duh-duuun… duh-duh-duuun… duh-duh-duuun… duhdun!

It just makes you want to go jump out of a plane or something, doesn’t it? Sadly, I think I’d be less Tom Cruise, more James Corden.


#146 Batman Ninja (2018)
#147 Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
#148 Blade of the Immortal (2017), aka Mugen no jûnin
#149 Red Sparrow (2018)
#150 True Romance (1993)
#151 RoboCop (2014)
#152 Rocky IV (1985)
#152a Rocky VI (1986), aka Rock’y
#153 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
#154 Cash on Demand (1961)
#155 Despicable Me 2 3D (2013)
#156 Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018), aka Gojira: Kessen Kidō Zōshoku Toshi
#157 Zatoichi and the Doomed Man (1965), aka Zatôichi sakate-giri
#158 Free Enterprise (1998)
#158a Friends, Romans and Leo (1917)
#158b Little Red Riding Hood (1917)
#158c Quaint Provincetown (1917)
#158d Microscopic Pond Life (1915)
#159 Kidnapped (1917)
#160 Iron Monkey (1993), aka Siu nin Wong Fei Hung chi: Tit ma lau
#161 Superman III (1983)
#162 The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)
#163 The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
#164 Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
#165 Full Metal Jacket (1987)
#166 Wind River (2017)
#167 The LEGO Ninjago Movie 3D (2017)
#168 Body of Lies (2008)
#169 I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death (1969), aka Sono Sartana, il vostro becchino
#170 The Garden of Words (2013), aka Koto no ha no niwa
#171 The Secret in Their Eyes (2009), aka El secreto de sus ojos
#172 Paul (Extended Edition) (2011)
#173 The Way of the Gun (2000)
Muppet Treasure Island

Free Enterprise

The Navigator

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Full Metal Jacket

.


Firstly, as usual, stats and numbers…

  • With 28 new feature films watched, July kept up 2018’s run of supersize months — in fact, it’s not only the third best month of the year, but also the fourth best of all time.
  • It’s my 50th consecutive month with 10+ films. It’s also my 6th consecutive month with 20+ films, extending that record-breaking run. It leaves just November and December as the only months that have never reached 20+ films.
  • It’s by far my highest July ever, the previous best being last year’s 17, and is so far beyond the monthly average of 8.1 that it’s dragged it up almost two whole films to 9.9.
  • Continuing with averages, it also surpasses the rolling average of the last 12 months (previously 19.1, now exactly 20) and the average for 2018 to date (previously 24.2, now 24.7).
  • On the 17th I reached the landmark of being 100 films ahead of target. That’s the first time I’ve been 100 ahead since the end of 2015, when I was there for all of three days (29th-31st December) — and that was the only other time I’ve been 100 ahead. As it stands, I end the month a whopping 115 films ahead of where I ‘should’ be by this point.
  • Less auspiciously, this month my backlog of unreviewed films also surpassed 100 titles for the first time. Eesh.
  • Back to brighter news: as I continue to keep track of dates on which I’ve never seen a film (see the last bullet point in Viewing Notes here for background on that), this month I watched films on both the 16th and 19th to reduce the remaining list by a third. Still to come this year: September 2nd and December 22nd.

Now for something actually about the films themselves…

  • This month’s Blindspot film: plugging a gap in my viewing of both Quentin Tarantino’s and Tony Scott’s filmographies, the Tarantino-written Scott-directed True Romance, which plays exactly like a movie written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film: plugging a gap in my viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s filmography, as I tend to do about once a year, Full Metal Jacket, which was one of my favourite Kubricks.
  • Somewhat relatedly: Argentinian Oscar-winning thriller The Secret in Their Eyes was a strong contender for one of those must-watch lists this year, but didn’t make it for reasons I forget. I sort of figured it’d be on a list next year. Not anymore, obviously.
  • Finally, earlier this week I posted my Train to Busan review semi-randomly (it was the last review left from 2017 and I wanted those done), only to later discover its UK TV premiere is this Friday. The “likes to make reviews tie into things” part of my brain was not impressed.



The 38th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Tom Cruise learnt to fly a helicopter, performed 106 skydives, and broke his ankle just to entertain us. And by golly, it worked. Some favourites are not a choice — this just is Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
There were a few mediocre options to choose between here, though. While there were definite flaws in certain unnecessary remakes and sequels among this month’s viewing (have a scan through the list above and I’m sure you can pick out the films I mean), the closest any film came to the cardinal sin of boring me was Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle.

Most Played Soundtrack of the Month
As much as I love the Mission: Impossible music (and, having now listened to the soundtrack in full, Lorne Balfe’s score for Fallout is better than I gave it credit for in my review), the soundtrack I’ve most often had on loop this month is Muppet Treasure Island, which has an array of superbly piratical songs (including a scene-stealing turn from Tim Curry), as well as a proto-Pirates of the Caribbean score from Hans Zimmer.

Most Impressive Spy of the Month
Oh sure, Ethan Hunt can do all those amazing physical feats, but can he be a pasty white guy wandering around Iraq looking for terrorists and somehow not stand out like a sore thumb to the locals, hm? No, that’s apparently Leo’s special skill as Roger Ferris in Body of Lies.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
I reviewed two new releases this month: direct-to-Netflix anime sequel Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle, and highly anticipated cinematic blockbuster Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Guess which review got the most hits. Yes, as you’ve probably correctly predicted from the way I’m making this point, it was Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle. Well, I can tell you exactly why that happened: my most-viewed posts are always ones that get a lot of referrals from IMDb, and, despite submitting my Fallout review as soon as I published it on Thursday morning, for some reason they didn’t add it until Monday afternoon, after the pre-release and opening weekend interest had passed. It ended up coming third, behind a very different spy movie, Red Sparrow.


After a concerted effort, this month I finally finished publishing reviews of my 2017 viewing. Now I’ve just got all those 2018 ones to catch up…


This month I am mainly rewatching Films That Precede Sequels That Are In Cinemas Now.

Well, I say “mainly” — from a UK perspective, technically it only applies to two of these…

#25 Galaxy Quest (1999)
#26 Never Say Never Again (1983)
#27 The Incredibles (2004)
#28 Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
#29 Ant-Man 3D (2015)

I’ve been meaning to watch Never Say Never Again, er, again for yonks — I last saw it as a kid and, really, didn’t remember it very well. I happened to catch it starting one night on ITV4 HD and thought, well, why not now? Turns out, it’s not all that bad. I mean, it’s not great, but it was a passably entertaining off-brand Bond film. There are probably some Roger Moore films I’d rank below it — if it counted for such rankings, which it doesn’t. I’ll give it the “Guide To” treatment at some point.

I bought (and last watched) the special edition DVD of The Incredibles when it first came out in 2005, but I’ve never upgraded it because Disney have given it short shrift over here: first an extras-starved Blu-ray, now no UHD release even scheduled. It was long overdue that I revisit the film (as I said, it’s been 13 years), especially with the sequel coming out (in July here, hence why I wasn’t wittering about this last month), but I didn’t want to watch it in SD. I ended up stumbling across a UHD copy by… “other means”. So, yeah: screw you, Disney — I can’t say I feel too guilty about freely acquiring a film I’ve already bought and they’ve not bothered to treat right on this side of the pond since DVD.

Anyway, it’s a truly exceptional film — I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to rewatch it, and I wish I had more often. It’s certainly in my top four Pixar movies, alongside the Toy Story trilogy. Plus, I definitely made the right call skipping SD: it looks fantastic in higher definition; almost too good, the crispness showing up the age of the CG animation. Whether there’s an appreciable difference between its HD and UHD versions, I couldn’t say. Based on the comparisons at Caps-a-holic, there’s a slight difference in colour and sometimes in very, very fine detail, but the regular Blu-ray seems to hold its own.

Finally, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. It’s clearly the best of the first five Missions. Obviously, you’re allowed to have a different opinion. But you’d be incorrect. It’s basically a perfect spy/action movie, and anyone who tries to say otherwise is just wrong.


I suppose summer, with all its picnics and barbecues and whatnot, is the most appropriate time to release a movie about an ant and a wasp…