Tag Archives: March

March’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.

Pick your poison for what was the most noteworthy theatrical release in March: Bong Joon-ho’s first film since the all-conquering Parasite, Mickey 17; or Disney’s latest live-action remake and PR mess, Snow White. I know which I’ll be watching first when they make their way to disc and/or streaming. Elsewise, it was quite a strong month for animation, with Oscar winner Flow finally making it to UK screens, alongside the highest grossing animated movie of all time (thanks China), Ne Zha 2, and the latest entry in the long-running Gundam anime franchise, this time pairing up with the creatives behind Neon Genesis Evangelion for the barely-pronounceable Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: The Beginning, released theatrically ahead of its TV series (on Prime Video worldwide from next week. I presume the movie, or an episodic version of it, will form part of that offering). Also occupying screen space were Steven Soderbergh’s second film this year already, spy thriller Black Bag, and a new Jason Statham actioner directed by David “Suicide Squad” Ayer, A Working Man, plus other films I know even less about but had big names in them or just enough of a marketing push that they entered my consciousness, like Last Breath, Opus, The Alto Knights, Novocaine, and The Woman in the Yard. I look forward to next hearing of them when they’re on free/subscription streaming and I automatically add them to my never-ending watchlist.

Talking of streaming, Netflix had an original this month that managed to attract chatter on a theatrical level — albeit for all the wrong reasons, because The Electric State is supposedly slop of the lowest order. I’ll say this for it: it prompted me to buy the book it’s based on, which I hear is excellent. Conversely, attracting no attention whatsoever (as far as I saw) was Prime Video Original Holland, which appears to be some kind of mystery thriller starring Nicole Kidman, Matthew Macfadyen, and Gael García Bernal. That interests me on the surface, but dropping it with no fanfare hardly instills confidence. Similar could be said for O’Dessa on Disney+ — yes, Disney+ has some original feature-length content to report this month! It’s a rock musical of some sort, apparently, starring Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink, who the industry seems to be desperately trying to make happen and I have no idea if it’s working or not (nothing she’s led seems to have broken out, but who knows what’s going on with Young People on the TikToks and whatnot).

Otherwise it was business as usual, in the sense that theatrically-released films of various sizes made their subscription streaming debuts. Disney+ de facto leads the way with big-hit animated sequel Moana 2 and unwanted live-action sequel Mufasa: The Lion King. Prime Video was on a slightly smaller scale with Brit flick The Critic and second Hellboy reboot Hellboy: The Crooked Man, though I bet I watch at least one of those before I watch either of those Disney offerings. The best Netflix could muster was Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which may or may not have already been on NOW, I can’t remember, thus showing how much I care for that franchise at this point. And as for NOW, their slate included litigation-provoking adaptation It Ends With Us, one-quarter of an epic Western in Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (has Chapter 2 come out yet? I forget), and AI horror Afraid (aka AfrAId, geddit?)

Back catalogue additions that particularly caught my eye included two titles on Prime I’d never heard of before: The Black Watch, aka King of the Khyber Rifles, a 1929 John Ford movie co-starring Mrs Thin Man, Myrna Loy, which doesn’t have a great score on IMDb but, hey, what do they know; and Knight Chills, a TTRPG-related slasher movie, which looks low-rent but perhaps fun. Hey, it can’t be worse than Mazes and Monsters… probably. iPlayer filled a gap by offering the first Harry Palmer sequel, Funeral in Berlin. The others are on Prime, so now I can watch them all, for good or ill (I figure there’s a reason most people have only heard of The Ipcress File). MUBI are encouraging me to give the work of Jacques Tati another go by adding a bunch of his films. I saw M. Hulot’s Holiday and Playtime at uni (and reviewed the latter) and didn’t care for either, but my taste has broadened since then, so who knows now?

As ever, I could spend many paragraphs rattling through all the other streaming additions, but (as has become my habit recently) let’s focus on ones I already own on disc. For example, Se7en cropped up on Netflix, thus giving me an excuse to mention it for the third month in a row and hopefully push me to watch the 4K disc I bought. It could be worse: How the West Was Won is on iPlayer, and that was one of the first Blu-rays I bought, so it’s been sat on my shelf for 15 or so years. Could be worse: I own Orson Welles’s Confidential Report on Criterion DVD, and look, there it is in HD on Prime. At the other end of the scale, a recent ‘mistake’: I imported the US Blu-ray of The Last Voyage of the Demeter because there was no sign of a UK release, then didn’t rush to watch it and now there’s been a UK release, a 4K release, and it’s streaming ‘free’, and in 4K to boot. Dammit.

I could go on in this vein, but let’s instead to transition to future stars of my “regrets” section: all the new stuff I’ve bought on disc! Lots of 4K titles this week, from brand-new releases like Gladiator II, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, and Megalopolis, to lavish new editions of older titles, like a pair of David Cronenbergs from Second Sight, The Brood (which I’ve never seen) and Scanners (which I have and rather loved); a pair of Akira Kurosawas from the BFI, Yojimbo and Sanjuro (both great, though most praise tends to be aimed at the first whereas I have a soft spot for the second); the first in Hammer’s attempt to highlight some of their lesser-known titles, Four Sided Triangle; and, though I am usually loathe to pay full price for a Criterion, I wanted to support them releasing films like Godzilla vs. Biollante.

(If you’ll indulge an aside into some semi-informed analysis: Godzilla vs. Biollante strikes me as a telling release, in that Criterion putting it out by itself at this point suggests there’s no chance of the hoped-for Heisei Era set coming as a companion / followup to the Showa Era one they released as #1000 back in 2019. Sure, they released the original Godzilla as a standalone title before the Showa set, but that’s a different kettle of fish: the original will interest some people who don’t care for the franchise as a whole, whereas Biollante is nothing so iconic. The fact it’s only the second Heisei film leaves me hopeful the ones that followed will also get the Criterion treatment; at least the next two would be nice, as their previous double-bill Blu-ray release is currently $195+. Or maybe I’m looking at it all wrong — maybe they’ve got access to all these films in 4K and think a 4K box set would be prohibitive. But I think the fact they haven’t started with the era’s first film, The Return of Godzilla (aka Godzilla 1984), doesn’t bode well for that presumption. As always, time will tell.)

Also, I begrudgingly bought the Steelbook release of Panic Room. I’m not a huge fan of Steelbooks (unless they’re doing something clever or have exceptionally nice art, which they so rarely do), especially as nowadays it just seems to be an excuse to gouge an extra £10+ from the customer; but you can no longer guarantee that the Steelbook won’t be the only 4K release of a title (look at all those Disney+ series, and I guess that model works because Warner recently copied it for The Penguin), and, like many people, I’ve been waiting on Panic Room in HD (never mind 4K) for what feels like forever, so I didn’t want to miss out. It’s a particularly ugly Steelbook too, so I can’t even console myself with “at least it looks pretty”. If they do put out a regular edition soon, I’ll be miffed; but while there’s no sign of one, hey, at least I finally own it in HD.

Slipping down to regular ol’ 1080p Blu-ray, the boutique labels continue to dominate my spending. This month’s inevitable Radiance haul included new releases Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thrillers by Alain Corneau (containing Police Python 357, Série noire, and Choice of Arms); French sci-fi romance Je T’aime, Je T’aime; a pickup from a previous wave, Italian newspaper-based thriller Slap the Monster on Page One; and, from their partner label Raro Video, poliziotteschi Rulers of the City. How am I meant to resist when they’re putting out stuff in some of my pet favourite subgenres? The same goes for Eureka releasing a double-bill of Venom Mob films, The Daredevils and Ode to Gallantry. I’m not even a fan of the Venom Mob films I have seen, but I see something classic from Shaw Brothers Studio and I struggle to resist. Maybe these will be the ones where I understand what makes the group so popular.

Okay, so, yeah, I should probably cut back on purchases like that. Will I ever learn? Well, news came at the end of the month that may help: HMV have ended their 20% “first order” discount, which has long been usable on as many orders as you like if you knew what you were doing. The scheme had been running for a couple of years, meaning big purchasers racked up hundreds, if not thousands of pounds of savings. I dread to think exactly how much I saved (because it would mean I spent four times more), but it was a significant factor in my purchasing decisions. Now, I guess I’ll end up spending about the same but get less for it, and spread my purchases around other stores too. We can’t exactly complain (we got far more out of it than we were ever meant to), but I can’t help but think that if HMV are expecting their gross sales to increase by 25%, they’ve got a nasty surprise coming.

The ⅓ Monthly Review of March 2025

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I tried to find an elegant way to use the title to express the concept “I’ve watched a third of my Challenge, even though we’re only a quarter of the way through the year”, but somehow I couldn’t condense that into just a word or two, and so I’ve resorted to echoing August 2016’s title — although then it was just bluntly factual, lacking even the trace of irony present in using ⅓ at the ¼ point. Shame on you, past me, for your lack of… eh, it’s pretension, really.

So enough of that, let’s get on with the films…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#23 Never Back Losers (1961) — Series Progression #3
#24 Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) — Wildcard #7
#25 Hooray for Hollywood (1982) — Wildcard #8
#26 The Sinister Man (1961) — Series Progression #4
#27 Lifeforce (1985) — Failure #3
#28 Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983) — Wildcard #9
#29 The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) — WDYMYHS #3
#30 Revolver (1973) — Genre #2
#31 Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) — Blindspot #3
#32 The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) — Rewatch #3
#33 Mobile Suit Gundam (1981) — Wildcard #10


  • I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in March.
  • All of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • But most significantly, getting to #33 means I’m a whole month ahead of target.
  • I think it’s the new-style Wildcards that have really made a difference — rather than rear-loading them to help me across the finish line (a plan that only worked once out of three attempts), they’ve now helped give me a healthy head start. It’s no coincidence it’s become my first completed category of the year. In my introduction I mentioned the possibility of adding a mitigating rule so that I didn’t burn through those ten slots too quickly. The fact it took me three months to get here makes me think the current, simple rules are more-or-less ok — it doesn’t need to be forced to drag further into the year just for the sake of taking longer.
  • Conversely, I failed to watch a New Film in March. As someone who doesn’t get to the cinema much, it’s always harder to add to that category early in the year, but I still had options. Considering how far ahead I am overall, it doesn’t worry me — it’s an easy one to catch up later. It’s a shame not to hit the goal every month as planned, but it’s not something I’m going to lose sleep over.
  • The Man with the Golden Gun could also have counted for Series Progression, because it’s part of my chronological rewatch of the Bond films (which has, ridiculously, been going since 2012), but it served a stronger purpose counting for Rewatch this month.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was D.W. Griffith’s insanely-expensive anthology epic Intolerance, aka Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Throughout the Ages (I feel like it used to commonly go by the short title and now commonly goes by the long one, and there’s a reasonable argument either way).
  • Not that it matters, but I bought Intolerance on Blu-ray ten years ago this month, but only just put those discs in my player. And I’m sure that’s not even close to the oldest unplayed title I own.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was — to quote Hitch himself — “the first true Hitchcock picture”, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Lifeforce.



The 118th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
It’s sort of ridiculous and clearly more of a “cult classic” than a genuinely great film, but I really enjoyed Lifeforce. It’s a film that’s not afraid to go big and barmy, despite its limitations, and I admire that ambition. And, yeah, Mathilda May doesn’t hurt either. As I wrote on Letterboxd, “this is exactly the sort of stuff stereotypical 13-year-old boys should want to watch, not more Marvel slop.”

Least Favourite Film of the Month
It feels somewhat like punching down to pick on films from the Edgar Wallace Mysteries for this award — they’re somewhere between a ‘quota quickie’ and an anthology TV series, after all, and I’m sure no one involved thought they were making Great Art that would still be watched over 60 years later. Nonetheless, many of them are perfectly fine entertainment, so it’s still noteworthy when they fall short; and, to be honest, I didn’t watch anything else that bad this month. Of the two Edgar Wallaces I watched in March, particular dishonour goes to The Sinister Man for being casually racist — not maliciously so; more through ignorance, a lack of accurate information, and therefore poorly engaging with its own themes and content; but still, watching today, even at its best its somewhat laughable.


I got through ‘April’ in March — will I get through ‘May’ in April? Even if I don’t, I hope I don’t throw away this nice lead I’ve built up.

March’s Failures

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As I mentioned at the start of my March review, I’ve spent a lot of time this past month on things that aren’t films. Does that mean my pile of failures is even more shocking than normal? No, not really — I mean, it could scarcely get much bigger, could it? And I actually went to the cinema once this month too, so there’s even one less title in that paragraph than there’d normally be.

In fact, I’d hoped to make it to the cinema twice this month — Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire was my other targeted release — but family Easter weekend plans got in the way. I’m busy next weekend too, but maybe I’ll find a weeknight for it or something. I’m sure it’s the kind of film that would benefit from the big screen (I felt the same way about its predecessor, which I only saw at home, thanks in part to it coming out in The Covid Times). I nearly made it three trips, even, because I was tempted by Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. I knew the reviews would be poor to middling, but they were so bad it put me right off. I’ll definitely catch it on disc, though. Other silver screen releases this month that I’ll definitely catch on disc were Kung Fu Panda 4 (I enjoyed the first three, but not enough to make the effort for this one at the cinema) and the latest semi-Coen brothers film (in that it’s directed by just one of them), Drive-Away Dolls, which looked fun.

I thought the streamers’ premieres this month would fare better, but I didn’t make time for several of those either (maybe choosing to spend so much time on other stuff had more of an impact than I allowed in my opening paragraph). Top of my watchlist were Netflix’s fantasy actioner Damsel and thoughtful sci-fi Spaceman, plus Amazon Prime’s remake of Road House — not that I’ve ever seen the original, but this version boasts Doug Liman as director and Jake Gyllenhaal as star, both of which appeal to me. Well, now they’re here to count towards my Challenge in the Failures category next month, so that might improve their chances (for at least one of them, anyway).

Other films premiering on streaming included football (aka soccer) true story The Beautiful Game (not a sport I care about, but this boasts a cast led by Bill Nighy), a new all-action remake of The Wages of Fear, Pierce Brosnan in Fast Charlie (which I seem to remember seeing a trailer for and thinking it looked fun enough), and slushy romcom nonsense with a nigh-unsayable title, Irish Wish. I only mention that last one because everything about it seems like a total disaster. I won’t be watching (so it’s not really a “failure”, but I think we long ago passed that being a genuine litmus test for what I mention in this column).

Other big-name titles making their subscription streaming debuts included Ridley Scott’s Napoleon on Apple TV+; Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla on MUBI; three-and-a-half-hour concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour on Disney+, which also had Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins and six-time BAFTA nominee All of Us Strangers. Talking of awards nominees, Oscar winners abound, from Poor Things on Disney+ (much to the confusion of many Americans, based on social media), to American Fiction and Anatomy of a Fall on Amazon, to 20 Days in Mariupol on Channel 4, via all sorts of stuff on Netflix: acting nominees Nyad and Rustin; documentaries American Symphony and To Kill a Tiger; shorts The After and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar — the latter of which was one of four Wes Anderson Roald Dahl shorts that he apparently insisted were released as individual films so no one would judge them as a portmanteau feature, but which Netflix have now made available as a portmanteau feature, title The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More.

Talking of the Oscars, every February/March I get the offer of a cut-price Sky Cinema subscription from NOW, which used to be great for watching the Oscars on Sky. But, starting this year, here in the UK the ceremony is now broadcast free on ITV, so I don’t need to get Sky even at that budget price — hurrah! Except they’re still the streaming home to tonnes of recent movies, of course, so I took the offer anyway. That means my watchlist has been flooded with a mass of stuff that was previously locked away. We’re talking The Beekeeper (wasn’t that only in cinemas, like, the other week?), Michael Mann’s Ferrari (apparently a “Sky Original” — oh dear), Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City (eesh, I haven’t even watched The French Dispatch on Disney+ yet), Fast X, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, No Hard Feelings, Polite Society, Gran Turismo, May December, Violent Night, The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan, Renfield, Beau Is Afraid, She Said; plus superhero movies I kinda want to see even though they’re meant to be awful, like The Flash and Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods; and more back catalogue stuff that I’ve added to my watchlist but don’t even care enough to list here, so I’m not likely to actually watch any of it, am I? (But you never know…)

As if that wasn’t enough, the other streamers are also always bolstering their back catalogue. Most noteworthy among these also-rans for me was RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop on Amazon Prime. This making-of documentary is meant to be so good that I nearly bought it on Blu-ray. It’s not even just “a documentary”, but a four-part series totalling almost five hours. As making-ofs go, that’s rather incredible. I mean, I remember when the Twelve Monkeys DVD was exalted for having an hour-long making-of. Obviously, things like the Lord of the Rings appendices reshaped expectations in that regard, but those remained a rarity, and similar extravagances have been cut back with time (nowadays, even huge popular blockbusters typically get no more than 45 to 60 minutes of behind-the-scenes material, often split across multiple sub-ten-minute featurettes). That said, when I’m likely to make time for such an undertaking, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never actually got round to watching those Rings appendices, and I’m a much bigger fan of those films than I am of RoboCop.

Though that was one title I avoided buying on disc, this month (as with most months, to be honest) the streamers have been flooded with stuff to remind me I haven’t yet watched my bought-and-paid-for copy —from things I’ve never seen, like Michael Mann’s Ali and The Last of the Mohicans, the new Candyman, Drive My Car, The Kid Who Would Be King, Legends of the Fall, The Long Good Friday, Mazes and Monsters, Out of Sight, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Weathering with You; to things I’ve upgraded but not watched my new copy, like Drive, The Godfather trilogy, The Guest, La La Land, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; to stuff I’ve simply been meaning to revisit, like Catch Me If You Can, The Martian, The Matrix Resurrections, and The Third Man. And those are just some edited highlights.

Then there’s all the new discs I’ve been buying to further enlarge my collection. Only a handful of them were 4K this month: Ozploitation sci-fi horror Patrick from Indicator; bodyswap sci-fi horror Possessor from Second Sight; and folk horror Witchfinder General from 88 Films. Horror always seems to be at the forefront of new formats… though I’m not sure we can still call 4K a new format at this point. But nonetheless, plenty of deeper-cut horror movies are finding their way onto 4K discs while studios still twiddle their thumbs about releasing major titles on the format, so my point stands. That said, some much-anticipated studio titles did make it to the disc this month, in the form of a trio of long-awaited James Cameron films… and they were pretty universally derided for their ‘restored’ (read: modernised) picture quality. I’ve wanted True Lies on disc for decades, but I’m skipping it based on what I’ve read and seen (for now — maybe I’ll cave when it’s cheap. I mean, it’s likely this is the only version we’ll ever get). The one I did pick up is apparently the least-bad, The Abyss. Frankly, the DVD is so ancient, almost anything will be an improvement.

That aside, I have no other ‘major’ titles to mention this month, only new releases of older films from boutique labels. As seems to be commonplace nowadays, lots of martial arts-related titles, with a duo of duos from Eureka — the two Bodyguard Kiba films, and a double-feature of influential titles, The Swordsman of All Swordsmen and The Mystery of Chess Boxing — plus a box set of the Bounty Hunter trilogy from Radiance and The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 from 88 Films. Indicator mix things up with a trio of lucha libre films: Santo vs. the Riders of Terror, The Panther Women, and The Bat Woman (which I’ve sort of seen thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000 taking it on last season). Rounding things out, some releases I can’t neatly combine in thematic bundles: the latest silent movie restoration from Redwood Creek Films, the 1928 version of The Fall of the House of Usher (at least the third screen adaptation of that story I own); River, another time loop film from the makers of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (which I also haven’t watched); and Italian gangster actioner Tony Arzenta (aka Big Guns or No Way Out), which reportedly plays like a sequel to Le Samouraï (another film I’ve been intending to watch for decades).

The important thing to take away from all that is… I need more time to watch movies. But hey, at least there’s plenty of choice to fulfil the Failures category next month.

The Eggy Monthly Review of March 2024

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In case you somehow missed it, it’s Easter weekend. That’s the only reason for the title. There are no eggs involved anywhere else in this post.

In terms of observations actually related to the blog, I only managed to keep one of my two main viewing goals ticking over — that is to say, I hit my “ten new films per month” target, but fell short of keeping my 100 Films Challenge on track (more detail in Viewing Notes, as usual). That said, I’m pleased to have achieved even that much in March, when films have found themselves competing with an uncommon amount of other stuff for my entertainment time. To be specific, I’ve started a rewatch of the ’90s X-Men animated series (I’m ten episodes in, which adds up to 3½ hours); finally been playing point-and-click adventure classic Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (for about 11 hours); and, most consumingly of all, found myself somewhat obsessed with cult-phenomenon actual-play Dungeons & Dragons series Critical Role (I’ve watched 26½ hours, plus untold more spent reading around it, and barely made a start on it); and that’s without counting up sundry other bits and pieces, like reading books and comics, or slowly rewatching Blackadder.

Anyway, to get back to the films (though there’s always the comment section if you’d like to talk about the other stuff), here’s, um, the films…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#17 Dune: Part Two (2024) — New Film #3
#18 Maestro (2023) — 50 Unseen #4
#19 The Inspector Wears Skirts (1988) — Genre #2
#20 Black Tight Killers (1966) — Failures #3
#21 My Darling Clementine (1946) — Blindspot #3
#22 My Father and My Son (2005) — WDYMYHS #3


  • I watched 11 feature films I’d never seen before in March.
  • Just six of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge.
  • That means (as I said at the start) that I exceeded my “ten films per month” minimum target — for the first time this year; also, that’s the fourth month in a row, which is the most consecutive ten-film months since a pandemic-aided run of 21 months in 2020/21. (The all-time record remains 60 months, aka five solid years.)
  • But (as also mentioned at the start) I fell short of where I should be in my Challenge — but only by two films. I’ve got the rest of the year to catch that up, so it’s far from a disaster. Yet.
  • This is also the first month of 2024 without any rewatches; although I did still manage two short films (I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but I’m aiming to watch at least one of those each month too. That’s sort of an “unofficial” goal, though, in that I’m not exactly tracking it… except I am, because I keep records of all these things).
  • In terms of history and percentages and stuff, this is the best March since 2021, but because it’s still below March’s all-time average of 14.9, it brings it down to 14.6.
  • Conversely, being higher than last March means it does increase the rolling monthly average of the last 12 months, bringing it from 8.8 to 9.1. If I can continue my ten-films-per-month streak, eventually it’ll get above 10.0 again…
  • I posted my Dune: Part One review right at the end of February, fully intending to quickly follow it with my Dune: Part Two review in early March. That didn’t happen, obviously.
  • I’ve been buying Radiance releases since they sprung into existence back in mid-2022 (indeed, I’ve got 30 of the 37 titles they’ve released to date, plus several of their “partner label” releases too), but Black Tight Killers is the first one I’ve actually watched. I’m not one of those collectors who buys stuff just to keep on his self unopened… but I do have a bunch of stuff on my shelf unopened, because I am one of those collectors who’s interested in almost everything but can’t find the time to watch it all.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was John Ford’s version of the Wyatt Earp / gunfight at the O.K. Corral legend, My Darling Clementine.
  • Letterboxd informs me that My Darling Clementine was the first film I watched on a Tuesday this year. So there you go.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was Turkish intergenerational family drama My Father and My Son.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Black Tight Killers.



The 106th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I confess, I didn’t have any particular expectations of John Ford Western My Darling Clementine. Not that I thought it would be bad, but — despite it clearly having enough acclaim to get onto my Blindspot list — I didn’t sit down expecting a masterpiece or something either. Perhaps that’s what allowed it to blow me away, first from a visual standpoint (this is a film where even the day-for-night photography looks good) and then by… well, everything else.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
This has to be Alan Bennett adaptation Allelujah, which for much of its running time is an amiable-enough pro-NHS / anti-cutbacks polemic, before a final-reel twist threatens to undermine the whole thing. What a way to mangle your own point.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Now, technically — technically — the winner for this month was February’s Failures, which was way down the overall chart. I stress technically because I’m going to say the award actually goes to something I posted in February… but I posted it on February 29th, so it didn’t have much of a chance last month; and February 29th isn’t a real day anyway, so it’s sort of part of March. Very tenuously sort of. Anyway, that makes the winner my review of Dune: Part One, which actually cracked the overall top ten (at #8).



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


What balance will my entertainment choices level out at in April? Find out next month!

March’s Failures

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Box office-related chatter this month has mainly been asking, is the superhero boom over? With last month‘s Ant-Man 3 doing weaker business than expected, and now Shazam! Fury of the Gods underperforming, has given people cause to wonder if the near-monopoly the genre has exerted over the box office might finally be crumbling. I don’t wish for superhero movies to die off completely, but a little less dominance would be nice.

In their place, other films have flourished: Rocky spin-off sequel Creed III; horror franchise revival sequel Scream VI; fantasy reboot Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves; and, of course, the latest instalment in the popular gun-fu action series, John Wick: Chapter 4. The fact those are all still sequels or IP continuations might make some feel we’re just jumping out of the superhero frying pan into a different kind of IP fire, but at least there’s some variety of tone and style and content there.

Also reaching UK cinemas this month was the pulpy-looking Adam Drive vs dinosaurs adventure 65; a pair of Mia Goth-starring horrors, Pearl and Infinity Pool; a delayed bow for Warner Bros animation Mummies, a film I’ve heard so little chat about that I keep looking it up to check it’s real; and a bit of copyright exploitation (set to become a theme/genre unto itself over the next few years — it’s gonna need a catchy name, a la blaxploitation and sexploitation) in Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Funny concept, maybe, but I heard it was not good.

Meanwhile, Marlowe — the new film by director Neil Jordan, starring Liam Neeson and a fairly name-y supporting cast (Diane Kruger, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Danny Huston, etc), adapting a story about Raymond Chandler’s famed detective — went straight to streaming as a Sky Original. Oh dear. I’ve heard it’s as weak as that situation suggests. Still goes on my watchlist, though. Netflix’s headline premiere of the month was a revival of another popular detective, albeit a more recent creation, in TV series continuation Luther: The Fallen Sun. They actually put it into cinemas last month, presumably in an attempt to head off greater-than-usual accusations of it just being a TV movie (I mean, a new instalment of a TV series being released in such a way that you can only watch it on your TV? Of course it would’ve been fair to call that “a TV movie”.) They had another animation that seems to have flown under the radar, The Magician’s Elephant. Maybe it’s just me, but a lot of Netflix’s original animations seem to pass me by, only to then turn up with an Oscar nomination or something (cf. The Mitchells and the Machines, The Sea Beast, and others), so maybe it’ll enter my sphere of awareness again at a later date. Finally, Apple TV+ just debuted Tetris, about the creation of the eponymous video game. Maybe they couldn’t make a Pixels-style adaptation work.

I didn’t see tell of any brand-new originals on Amazon Prime, but they did add Palme d’Or winner and Oscar nominee Triangle of Sadness; and, from the less auspicious end of the spectrum, belated threequel Clerks III. Disney+ did their usual thing of rushing everything to streaming lickety-split, this time with Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light; although MUBI also pull a similar trick nowadays (though it feels more understandable with their smaller-scale, indie-type releases), this month with Iranian serial killer thriller Holy Spider. Meanwhile, Netflix seemed to get plenty of eyeballs onto their debut of extreme climbing-related thriller Fall, as well as sci-fi-horror sequel A Quiet Place Part II. That moved over to them from Sky Cinema, which still seems to be home to the most subscription streaming debuts. This month they included The Black Phone, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Elvis, Minions: The Rise of Gru, Where the Crawdads Sing, and the film that generated a tonne of awards season chatter thanks to the campaign for Andrea Riseborough, To Leslie.

As ever, I could go on and on about deeper catalogue titles across all the aforementioned services — plus titles on BBC iPlayer and All 4; and ITVX has quite the film section, though it’s hard to browse for new additions — but then we’d be here forever. Instead, let’s move right along to all the stuff I bought on disc this past month.

Perhaps the most noteworthy new release this month was Second Sight’s long-awaited 4K release of George A. Romero’s Martin. I do actually own the Arrow DVD from many moons ago and, in typical fashion, have never got round to watching it, so I wasn’t quite as itching for the very chance to see the film, as some have been; but it’s always nice to have something in tip-top quality. It also means I now own the vast majority of Romero’s filmography on Blu-ray or 4K (the only one I’m missing is Bruiser, which has only had an HD release in Germany and France). I ought to get on with watching them, really… Also coming to 4K this month, another relatively-minor feature from an acclaimed horror director, Red Eye. I previously owned it on DVD, which I only bought, cheap, a whole decade ago, because a Blu-ray wasn’t forthcoming and I wanted to rewatch it. That disc never entered a player. So, that rewatch is long overdue, and hopefully the 4K disc will be spun soon. In a similar situation of continual neglect is The City of Lost Children, released on 4K tomorrow (my copy trend up early). I’ve previously owned it on DVD and Blu-ray, but never seen it. Yeah, I’m a fool for this kind of thing. Anyway, another one that goes on my “really should watch this very soon” pile.

Other upgrades this month included 88 Films’ 4K reissue of Jackie Chan / Sammo Hung / Yuen Biao actioner Dragons Forever (it’s been out a while, but I’ve been waiting to snag it on an offer as, again, I hadn’t actually watch my Blu-ray copy); their newly-restored reissue of Chan’s Snake & Crane Arts of Shaolin; and Criterion’s Infernal Affairs Trilogy set (again, benefitting from waiting for an offer price). As if that wasn’t enough action from Hong Kong, I also picked up Eureka’s new releases of In the Line of Duty III and IV (following on from the series’ first two films, Yes, Madam and Royal Warriors, in December and January respectively); and another Jackie Chan title from 88 Films, Gorgeous. It felt to me like these classic HK/Chinese actioners were hard to come by in the UK in recent years (the Hong Kong Legends label used to do sterling work, of course, but that’s been defunct for some time), but we’re definitely spoilt now, with multiple labels regularly releasing high-quality editions. I’m doing a pathetic job of getting round to watching them (ain’t that true of everything?), but I continue to lap them up to sit on my shelf.

Similarly, almost anything put out by Indicator finds its way onto my shelves, and this was true again this month with their bundle of moderately obscure titles from the 1930s (and one from the ’40s). Those included Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby and Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (I enjoyed the box set of his silent work that Eureka put out many years ago, so I’ve always been interested in seeing more of his Hollywood productions, with the famed ‘Lubitsch touch’); James Whale’s The Kiss Before the Mirror; and Frank Capra’s State of the Union.

The rest of my purchases this month were similarly based on reputation alone, usually of the filmmaker rather than the film itself, although all slightly older releases I’d waited for discounts on. Therein are the likes of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s La Prisonnière; Criterion’s releases of Jim Jarmusch’s “acid western” Dead Man and Kasi Lemmons’s Southern Gothic drama Eve’s Bayou; and, finally, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz — technically a 14-episode miniseries, but there were at least some theatrical screenings of the entire 15-hour piece, so it’s not wholly egregious to mention it here. Though considering I struggle to find the time for those 90-minute-ish comedy-actioners, when I’m going to get round to a 15-hour series about “misery, lack of opportunities, crime and the imminent ascendency of Nazism” in Weimar Germany, I don’t know.

The (John) Wick-y Wicky Wild Wild Monthly Review of March 2023

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Yeah, I’m thinking he’s back. Keanu Reeves’s taciturn action man returned to the big screen this month — which I’m sure you know, because the praise has been hard to miss. I intended to get to see it, following a rewatch of the series so far (all of which qualified for this year’s Challenge — see below), but couldn’t quite make the timings work. Hopefully I’ll rectify that in the next couple of days.

It was a busy month overall for me, between various personal commitments, work, and a bout of illness (just a cold, but one that really knocked me out). That’s a big part of why there have been no reviews posted this month. My film viewing also primarily breaks down into a chunk at the start of the month and another chunk at the end, but it didn’t pan out so badly overall…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#17 Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) — Physical Media #2
#18 Police Story (1985) — Physical Media #3
#19 Confess, Fletch (2022) — Failures #3
#20 John Wick (2014) — Physical Media #4
#21 John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) — Series Progression #3
#22 John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) — Rewatch #3
#23 Blood and Black Lace (1964) — Genre #2
#24 Murder Mystery 2 (2023) — New Film #3


  • I watched eight feature films I’d never seen before in March.
  • Five of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with three rewatches.
  • That makes March arguably the best month of 2023 so far: the eight new films ties with January in second place (behind February’s nine), but three rewatches gives a total of 11, the highest overall total for a single month this year. Plus, I watched four shorts (though I watched five in February).
  • With the end of March being a quarter of the way through the year, you might think only having reached #24 means I’m behind target — but not so! Thanks to February being far shorter than any other month, the ‘deadline’ for #25 actually falls on April 1st.
  • That John Wick rewatch… I could’ve just counted all the films in the same category (more or less — Rewatch for the first, then Wildcard rewatches for the next two), but I decided to spread the love around a bit and put each in a different category, just because I could. Chapter 4 will surely be a New Film, whenever I see it.
  • Last month I said I hoped to watch more Best Picture nominees. In the end, I only saw Everything Everywhere All at Once. But as that turned out to be the winner, it wasn’t such a bad one to have caught up on.
  • No Blindspot or WDYMYHS films this month. I could maybe have squeezed one of them in at the end, but chose to skip both and keep their numbers equal — all the better for remembering that I’m now behind with them.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Confess, Fletch.



The 94th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
The three first-time watches that kicked off the month (#17–19 above) are all strong contenders for this gong. On balance, I guess I’ll declare myself a member of the Everything Everywhere All at Once fan club — with a side note that Confess, Fletch deserves a lot more love and I hope we get a sequel (or several).

Least Favourite Film of the Month
Conversely, there was nothing I really disliked. I guess Murder Mystery 2 was the most middle-of-the-road of the bunch, but even that I had fun with and was glad I watched.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Just two new posts compete here, so it’s not much of a contest. Even still, the winner only took it by a single hit. That was February’s Failures.


As we head out of “the beginning of the year” and into the long middle, I’d like to get my new film viewing up. My target is always at least ten a month, and I’ve been doing pretty poorly at that for a long time now — I missed it in seven months during 2022, and have yet to hit it in 2023. If I don’t do it next month, that’ll be the lowest sub-ten stretch since 2011. And yet, I’m also quite busy again for the next couple of weeks. Jeopardy!

March’s Failures

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A quieter month in theory means more failures… but, who am I kidding, there are always tonnes of these. I’d probably have to watch ten times as many films to leave this column blank.

The most noteworthy oversight this month is undoubtedly The Batman. I’m a fan of the character anyway, and now they’ve made a version that sounds even more up my street — it’s regularly been compared to films like Se7en, my favourite movie ever. But life has conspired against me, and so I’ve not yet found a time to see it on the big screen. I still might, though I’ve already got the 4K Blu-ray on preorder anyway. That wasn’t the only new film at the cinema this month, although the likes of The Nan Movie and Morbius haven’t received the strongest notices. The new Michael Bay effort, Ambulance, sounds somewhat promising, though definitely something I’ll leave ’til streaming.

Even before that, the list of movies I’ve left to streaming that have now turned up on streaming is beginning to grow. It was a relatively strong month for Sky Cinema (which has ailed a bit over the last couple of years, between a dearth of new theatrical releases and distributors wanting to snaffle exclusivity for their own streamers), adding the likes of Fast & Furious 9, Reminiscence, Malignant, and Don’t Breathe 2; plus M. Night Shyamalan’s latest, Old, although I already own that on an (unwatched, natch) 4K disc. Sky are also the UK-exclusive home for Liam Neeson’s latest action trash, Blacklight, upending my previously-expressed notion that he had some kind of Amazon Prime exclusivity deal going on.

Talking of streaming premieres and Amazon Prime, the best they could offer this month was Deep Water, the Ben Affleck / Ana de Armas erotic thriller that’s had some kind of behind-the-scenes woes I haven’t bothered to follow. On the other hand, they’re also the streaming home for acclaimed Princess Diana biopic Spencer. You win some, you lose some. Netflix’s brand-new offerings were somewhat short on widely-discussed titles (no Oscar noms or headline-grabbing production issues here), but looked like a stronger slate overall. I’ve heard good things about Ryan Reynolds-starring sci-fi The Adam Project; post-apocalyptic Swedish thriller Black Crab seemed to shoot up their viewing chart; Nightride is billed as a “real-time crime thriller”, which sounds up my street; and I also spotted The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure, which looks like a Korean Pirates of the Caribbean. If it lives up to that vibe, which I got from its trailer, then it could be fun. Also not to be overlooked is Boiling Point, another real-time thriller — set in, er, a restaurant kitchen at Christmas — that I’ve heard is very good.

But for all that, the biggest streaming premiere of the month was surely the new Pixar on Disney+, Turning Red. If we ignore the empty-headed ‘controversy’ it generated (essentially, some middle-aged white men struggling with a story that wasn’t about a middle-aged white man), it’s meant to be very good — but I’m way behind on my Disney / Pixar viewing, so it just has to go on the list with Luca, Raya, Encanto, and probably a few others. In a very different mode, they were also the UK home for Fresh, a film which everyone has been talking about while trying to avoid the ‘surprise reveal’. If it’s not about cannibalism, the marketing has done a good job misdirecting my expectations. If it is about cannibalism, I’m not sure why everyone’s pretending it’s such a big secret. Maybe they’re just overly optimistic about what can be kept a surprise these days (the poster’s a dismembered hand packaged like a supermarket steak, c’mon!) Sticking with the big D, they also belatedly (it came out in the US back in January) debuted a belated (the last one was six years ago) continuation for the Ice Age franchise with The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild; plus, streaming debuts for Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley; Jessica Chastain’s Oscar winner, The Eyes of Tammy Faye; and the second pandemic-delayed Kenneth Branagh Poirot mystery, Death on the Nile — it slipped in there on the 30th, just in time to make this the second month in a row I’ve mentioned it (after its theatrical debut just last month). I’m inclined to jump straight to buying it on disc, to go with its predecessor (which I enjoyed), and that’s out in April — so it may end up mentioned in my failures three months on the trot. Or maybe I’ll actually watch it — stranger things have happened.

Once the home to deep cuts from the arthouse archive, MUBI increasingly have dibs on new arthouse (read: foreign) hits, at least in the UK. This month that boiled down to the streaming premiere of Cannes winner Titane, but they’ve got a big couple of months ahead, with Oscar nominees Drive My Car and The Worst Person in the World likely to feature in future editions of this column. All 4 do the same kind of thing later and freer, albeit with ads, recently including Bacurau, Rita, Sue and Bob Too (both their viewing windows now expired, unfortunately), Her Smell, and Ninjababy. There wasn’t so much noteworthy on the BBC iPlayer this month, although they’ve got back a couple of films I’ve been meaning to get round to for years, like If Beale Street Could Talk and Molly’s Game. I’m also going to mention La Belle Époque, which appeared on there just days after I posted my 5-star review, and is still available.

As always, we end with the place my disposable income goes to die: Blu-ray purchases… although the list doesn’t look so long this month. Indeed, day-one purchases were relatively thin on the ground: I picked up The Matrix Resurrections, because I loved it (and, er, didn’t pay for it first time round…), plus I imported Nightmare Alley on 4K (no UK release seems forthcoming, not even a retailer-exclusive Steelbook), and at the same time nabbed the new 4K release of The Sword and the Sorcerer — never seen it, no idea if I’ll like it, but I do sometimes enjoy a bit of ’80s-style Fantasy, so it’s the kind of thing that’s worth a punt to me. Rounding out my US order was a film I didn’t even know existed until Warner Archive put it out recently, the 1948 adaptation of The Three Musketeers, with a starry cast that includes Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, Angela Lansbury, and Vincent Price. Other new releases of older titles that I’ve never included Hong Kong take on Nikita, Black Cat, and Eureka’s latest classic martial arts title, Odd Couple. And then, of course, there were sales and offers: my 4K collection continues to bulge out with Halloween Kills and Venom: Let There Be Carnage from a chart 2-for-whatever; and a bunny-themed double (sort of) in a Disney 2-for-whatever, with Jojo Rabbit and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. A UK Criterion 2-for-whatever brought me Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and Topsy-Turvy (I used to love Gilbert and Sullivan’s work as a kid, but I haven’t listened to or seen any of it for ages). Finally-finally, a couple of limited editions I bought belatedly at near-as-damn-it full price before they disappeared forever: the HMV-exclusive edition of Almost Famous (it has both cuts in 4K, which the cheaper regular UK release does not) and Arrow’s Yokai Monsters set — the standard edition of which is already out, at a higher price point than the limited edition. What is the world coming to…

The Slapping Monthly Review of March 2022

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In my last post, a little over three weeks ago, I wrote that it had been “a hectic time, both at work and in my personal life, these past few weeks.” Well, that didn’t really let up, hence the extended period of radio silence here. Hopefully that is now behind me, however, and both posting and film watching can return to the decent pace I’d established in the first two months of the year.

If it doesn’t, maybe I need a jolly good slap… or not, eh?

Alright, that’s what amounts to “topical satire” for now. Let’s get on with how March’s film viewing went…



This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#21 Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) — Decades #10
#22 West Side Story (1961) — Rewatch #3
#23 Cobra (1986) — WDYMYHS #3
#24 Django & Django (2021) — New Film #3
#25 A Man Escaped (1956) — Blindspot #3


  • I watched nine feature films I’d never seen before in March.
  • Four of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
  • That means I end the month bang on target: we’re a quarter of the way through the year, and I’m a quarter of the way to #100.
  • My overall viewing is going less well, failing to reach ten new films in a month for the first time since November. (You can see all my latest viewing, both Challenge-related and not, on my Recently Watched page.)
  • That said, while it didn’t reach the magic double figures, it’s not that far short of 2022’s other months: the year’s monthly average only drops from 12 to 11.
  • That said, in the world of viewing averages, a whole film drop is moderately large. For comparison, the rolling average of the last 12 months dropped by 0.9 films (from 14.8 to 13.9), and the all-time average for March by just 0.46 (from 15.79 to 15.33).
  • For the third month in a row, my “2022 film” is a 2021 film that didn’t get a UK release until 2022. This should’ve been the month to buck that trend, with The Batman, but unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to get to the cinema.
  • This month’s Blindspot film was Robert Bresson’s World War 2 prison drama A Man Escaped — or, to fully translate its original French title, One Condemned to Death Escaped, or, The Wind Blows Where It Wants. Classy.
  • This month’s WDYMYHS film was ’80s Sly Stallone actioner Cobra. That doesn’t have an intelligent-sounding extended title. Or much intelligence on the whole, really. It’s kinda fun, though.
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The King’s Man.



The 82nd Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I watched both versions of West Side Story this month, and, heretical as it may sound, I think I thought Spielberg’s was better. (As a rewatch, the original isn’t eligible for this award anyway). Not only that, but Spielberg’s pure cinematic skill sees it stand out easily from the rest of the month’s viewing.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I actually quite enjoyed The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee — certainly more than most other people seem to have — but there’s also no doubt it was the weakest film I saw this month.

Film You’d Most Like to Hang Out In of the Month
Who wouldn’t want to spend time nattering with the grandes dames of British theatre and cinema in Nothing Like a Dame? Not only would you get fabulous anecdotes, but they seem like a right giggle.

Film You’d Least Like to Hang Out In of the Month
No one said life in a Nazi prison would be fun, and A Man Escaped certainly bears that out.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Just three posts to choose from, last month, and the victor of those was 2022 Weeks 7–8. Of the other two, my ‘failures’ proved more popular than my general monthly review for the second month running. Could just be the appeal of the title, I suppose.



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


The much-discussed Spider-Man: No Way Home finally hits disc next week, so I’ll see if it has any surprises left for me (I don’t think I’ve been totally spoiled, but it’s been impossible to avoid certain big stories). Also, hopefully I’ll also finally see The Batman, one way or another. And also some films that don’t involve men dressing up as critters to fight evil.

The Titanic Monthly Review of March 2021

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Nothing to do with the ship, everything to do with the two titans (aka kaiju) duking it out on disappointingly small screens right now.


#54 Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (2019)
#55 David Byrne’s American Utopia (2020)
#56 Dead Man’s Eyes (1944)
#57 Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001)
#58 Con Air (1997)
#59 Wild Target (2010)
#60 Bright Young Things (2003)
#61 Carol (2015)
#62 Gambit (2012)
#63 We Bought a Zoo (2011)
#64 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
#65 Holiday Affair (1949)
#66 The Catcher Was a Spy (2018)
#67 Truly Madly Deeply (1990)
#68 Vivacious Lady (1938)
#69 The Prom (2020)
#70 Bachelor Knight (1947), aka The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
#71 Midnight in Paris (2011)
#72 Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972), aka Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes
#73 Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
David Byrne's American Utopia

Carol

Godzilla vs. Kong

.


  • I watched 20 new feature films in March.
  • That’s the first time since 2016 that my first three months of a year have all topped 20. Then, it lasted until April — we’ll see if that feat is duplicated next month.
  • Nonetheless, it’s March’s lowest tally since 2017, although it still surpasses the March average (previously 15.5, now 15.8).
  • It’s also the lowest tally of 2021 so far, falling short of the year’s average to date (previously 26.5, now 24.3) and of the rolling average of the last 12 months (previously 23.9, now 23.3).
  • Still, I passed the halfway point of my modified goal (120 films in a year) on 13th March, the earliest ever (beating 2016).
  • And this is the furthest I’ve ever reached by the end of March, beating a previous best of #67 (which was also in 2016).
  • This month’s Blindspot film: Werner Herzog’s first significant feature film, Aguirre, Wrath of God. Also the first Herzog film I’ve ever seen, believe it or not (well, I did watch the start of Fitzcarraldo once, but it literally sent me to sleep).
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched The Catcher Was a Spy, David Byrne’s American Utopia, and Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway.



The 70th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I always find concert films a little weird. Just sitting watching people play music — what? (Can you tell I don’t go to gigs? I have done, and I find them weird too.) So, I’m never quite sure what to expect — I guess, at best, some music I like that I am paying weirdly too much attention to. But there’s somehow more than that to David Byrne’s American Utopia — even though it is, fundamentally, people playing music. But it felt almost like a profound experience, and I’m (clearly) still processing that.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
As it started, I thought Netflix musical The Prom might defy all the negatives I’d heard and turn out to be perfectly decent. But its earlier scenes and numbers are the best bit — it goes on too long, the quality drops, and by the end, well, I didn’t hate it, but there was plenty of room for improvement.

Best Callback of the Month
Look, I don’t want to spoil Godzilla vs. Kong for anyone (especially as it’s only out in the UK today, and it costs £16 so I presume hardly anyone will be paying for it), but it contains a fun reference to an (in)famous moment from 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla (so famous that I’m very aware of it even though I’ve never seen the ’62 film) that left a big grin on my face. Here’s the original moment in gif form, just as a primer for whenever you watch GvK…

“Eat your greens!”

Post Opportunity I’m Most Annoyed to Have Missed of the Month
Other than when I’m dumping old unreviewed films in roundup posts, I always feel like it’s nice to be able to tie a review in to something. It feels less like it’s just being tossed out into the ether if it’s at least somehow connected to something current. The past couple of years, I’ve got very good at missing these opportunities, and it always irks me. Most recently, a new documentary about Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, titled He Dreams of Giants, was released in the UK last Monday — but I got the chance to see it last September, and watched Don Quixote and the previous (un)making-of doc about Gilliam’s film, Lost in La Mancha, also. I intended to post them together as a triple review to mark the occasion, but didn’t find time to write them up. So now they’ll languish in my backlog, probably to also be dumped in a 100-Week Roundup in mid-2022. Bother.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
None of this month’s new posts seem to have particularly piqued the interest of my readership and/or the general public who stumble across this blog. The most seen was 100-Week Roundup XXVI, with its reviews of Paperman and Waltz with Bashir, but it was in a lowly 82nd place overall. Roundup XXVII was right behind it, too.



This month, I continued to rewatch films, while also continuing to slowly slip behind on my target. There’s always time to catch up, though — if I ever get round to watching a trilogy or something, I’ll shoot along. And with the Indiana Jones films just announced for 4K, it’s long overdue that I actually watch my Blu-ray set…

#7 The Sound of Music (1965)
#8 Casablanca (1942)
#9 Runaway Jury (2003)

The Sound of Music and Casablanca were both films I haven’t watched in about 15 years, which I feel like is a pretty standard kind of revisit time for me — long enough that I begin to think “I should really rewatch that”, plus half-a-decade-or-so of not quite getting round to said rewatch (for example: I’ve owned Casablanca on Blu-ray since 2014). Brief thoughts on both (here and here, respectively) on Letterboxd.

It’s been even longer since I saw Runaway Jury. It’s not the kind of film I necessarily thought I’d ever rewatch — it’s good, I liked it, but not really exceptional — but sometimes you just get an itch. It was worthwhile, because I do love this kind of stuff: just a solid, well-played thriller. I guess it’s the province of TV rather than movies now, but there’s something to be said for wrapping it all up in one 120-minute hit rather than dragging it out for eight-to-thirteen hours.


The big news this month was the long-awaited release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League — direct to Sky Cinema / Now on this side of the pond, limiting most (legal) viewers to a relatively low quality stream. But hey, at least it was available as part of a subscription package rather than having to fork out £16 to rent one single film. Other “would’ve been in cinemas under normal circumstances” flicks that went down that route included Ammonite, Judas and the Black Messiah, The Little Things, Locked Down, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Tom and Jerry, and that’s why I’ve not seen any of them. Justice League, on the other hand, I just haven’t made room for its four-hour running time yet.

Other big streaming debuts this month included Coming 2 America, once slated for a cinema release but now an Amazon Original. I presume they paid a pretty penny for the privilege, given how mercilessly they were pushing it on their homepage. I’ve heard it’s quite good, which can’t also be said for their other debuts, The War with Grandpa and Made in Italy. Elsewhere, Netflix had Jennifer Garner vehicle Yes Day, while Apple TV+ offered the Russo brothers’ attempt to prove they can do more than MCU flicks, Cherry. I won’t be racing to watch either.

Also out to buy or rent this month, but at a more normal price point, was the Russian remake of The Raid, cannily titled Russian Raid; another DC flick, Wonder Woman 1984 (no 3D release in the UK (but there is one overseas) means no purchase from me); and a belated release for Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Plus, straddling the two price points, documentary Stray, about street dogs in Istanbul. Sounds like the kind of thing that would be ripe for misery and depression for a dog lover like myself, but apparently it isn’t at all, so I’ll give that a shot when it’s a bit cheaper.

Dozens more films made my watchlist across all the streamers this month (between regular subscriptions, discounted ones, and free services, I’m currently keeping an eye on six different services), but not a huge amount that merit special mention here. Well, maybe Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula, which I blind bought on Blu-ray, haven’t watched yet, and is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Oh well. And, talking of Korean thrillers, iPlayer magicked up one I hadn’t heard of — The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil — that sounds up my street. Or that I really should catch Wild Tales before it leaves All 4 again. Or the fact that between Amazon and iPlayer I could catch up on two different versions of A Star Is Born (1937 and 1954, respectively), which would just leave the 1976 one. Or that Disney+ adding Star to their lineup is causing a dilemma for my viewing of the Die Hard films I’ve never seen: they have all the sequels in 4K, so now I have to choose between watching the Blu-rays I own and paid for, or plump for streaming in lovely UHD. I find this choice easy when it’s DVD vs HD streaming (the latter almost always looks noticeably better), but I find that sometimes a poor/mediocre UHD version (especially if they’ve been over-aggressive with the HDR, for example) is actually worse than the Blu-ray. Frankly, I probably won’t get round to watching any of them before I cancel my D+ subscription, so it’s a bit of a moot point.

We end, as always, with my insatiable habit of buying things on disc — always the true failures here, because it’s all stuff I’ve actively spent money on. Once again, sales tempted me — it feels like some label or another is always running one these days, usually several at once. So, I picked up piles from Indicator (90° in the Shade, The Odessa File, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, The System, and Town on Trial), Network (Deadlier Than the Male, Some Girls Do, the 1928 Moulin Rouge, and Things to Come), HMV’s Premium Collection (kinda-noir Possessed and the 1932 Scarface), and a couple from the Criterion twofer that’s currently on (The Awful Truth and the 1936 Show Boat). I definitely intend to get more from the latter before the offer ends, but my wishlist is long (I could easily spend a couple of hundred quid on that alone). Plus, Arrow currently have a sale going too. Eesh. I also dropped a couple of quid each on The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel in 3D — I’m not a massive fan of those films, but they were actually shot in 3D and I’d like to see them in that form. I also nabbed The Meg in 3D for dirt cheap, but that one I thought that was a lot of fun.

And there were brand-new releases, too, all of them blind buys: animes Children of the Sea and Children Who Chase Lost Voices (aka Journey to Agartha); Fanny Lye Deliver’d, with an extended cut in 4K; the Lucky Stars trilogy of Jackie Chan / Sammo Hung action-comedies; and Russian horror Viy. As ever, my taste is nothing if not eclectic.


Later than usual, the Oscars are here (at almost the end of the month). So far I’ve seen precisely none of this year’s Best Picture nominees — let’s see how much that changes in the next four-and-a-half weeks…

The Self-Isolated Monthly Review of March 2020

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I hope you’ve got time for a long read (I know you do — you’re stuck at home too, right?) because there’s a tonne of stuff to witter about in this month’s update.

So, settle down with some of the stuff you’ve stockpiled (well, okay, you shouldn’t really need pasta or loo roll to get through this post… I hope…) and while away your isolation with my self-centred lists and stats.


#31 The Karate Kid Part II (1986)
#32 Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018)
#33 The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part 3D (2019)
#34 Harakiri (1962), aka Seppuku
#35 Showman: The Life of John Nathan-Turner (2019)
#36 Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
#37 The Invisible Guest (2016), aka Contratiempo
#38 Godzilla: King of the Monsters 3D (2019)
#39 Hustlers (2019)
#40 Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
#41 Last Chance Harvey (2008)
#42 Red Joan (2018)
#43 Late Night (2019)
#44 Quartet (2012)
#45 The Lady Vanishes (1938)
#46 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D (2009)
#47 The Platform (2019), aka El hoyo
#48 The Battle of Algiers (1966), aka La battaglia di Algeri
#49 Spider-Man: Far from Home 3D (2019)
#49a Peter’s To-Do List (2019)
#50 The Mad Magician 3D (1954)
#50a Spooks! 3D (1953)
#50b Pardon My Backfire 3D (1953)
#51 A Man for All Seasons (1966)
#52 The Viking Queen (1967)
#53 Aladdin 3D (2019)
#54 One Cut of the Dead, aka Kamera wo tomeruna! (2017)
#55 Knives Out (2019)
#56 The Breakfast Club (1985)
#57 So Dark the Night (1946)
#58 Missing Link (2019)
Harakiri

The Invisible Guest

The Lady Vanishes

Knives Out

.


  • I watched 28 new feature films in March. Boy, does that give me a lot to talk about…

So, let’s break it up a bit. First, some stats…

  • That’s my biggest month since July 2018, which also had 28 films. They’re now tied as my 4th best months ever.
  • Talking of all-time numbers, it’s my best March ever, with a total that’s double the month’s previous average of 14.4. In fact, it single-handedly pulls that average up by over one whole film, to 15.5.
  • Talking of averages, it also surpasses and increases both my rolling average of the last 12 months (previously 12.75, now 13.3) and my average for 2020 to date (previously 15.0, now 19.3).
  • Talking of numbers that are almost 20, it’s my 20th month ever to have 20+ films, and my first 20+ month since last May.
  • Talking of months with 20+ films, March is the month where I have the greatest consistency at reaching a total of 20+. I’ve done it every year since 2016 — that’s five years in a row now. It means March makes up fully 25% of all months with 20+ films. For comparison, there’s no other month where I’ve done it for more than two years in a row.
  • Another milestone: I reached (and passed) #50, i.e. halfway. Except I’m aiming for at least 120 nowadays, so halfway is another couple of films away yet.
  • Nonetheless, this is the second-furthest I’ve ever reached by the end of March, just ahead of #57 in 2018, but reasonably far behind 2016’s #67. What does this tell us about how the rest of the year might pan out? Bugger all. In 2018 I ended up reaching #261, whereas in 2016 I ‘only’ got to #195. And for another point of reference, March 2015 ended at #44, over 20 behind 2016, but ended the year five ahead, at #200. So, y’know, it’s all meaningless.
  • I also had a really good month for my Rewatchathon (see further down this post for more about that). I really should go back and produce a full set of numbers for every month so I can include that in comparisons too…

Talking of my Rewatchathon, what of my other viewing challenges…

  • This month’s Blindspot films: influential guerrilla war movie The Battle of Algiers; plus, I watched the first of what I’m calling my ‘overflow’ films (unseen leftovers from previous Blindspot challenges), seminal ’80s teen comedy The Breakfast Club. Also Harakiri, which merited a mention in my Blindspot post this year about why it wasn’t included (I’d forgotten about that when I randomly chose to watch it anyway!)
  • From last month’s “failures” I watched Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, Hustlers, The Karate Kid Part II, and Late Night.

Finally, some observations about the other films…

  • It’s fundamentally meaningless, but this month I watched my first feature films of the years whose titles begin with nine letters of the alphabet: F, G, H, I, K, O, Q, V, and W. That’s 35% of the alphabet covered in one month — only slightly more than the seven / 27% in January and eight / 31% in February, but then this task gets harder as the year goes on (January has a massive advantage, for hopefully-obvious reasons, whereas the most any of the remaining nine months would now be able to manage is two / 8%).
  • Another first: The Viking Queen was the first film I’ve watched on DVD this year.
  • Talking of DVDs, I watched Judgment at Nuremberg on the BFI’s recent Blu-ray release, which I bought even though I’d only bought the DVD a little while ago. Well, when I fished out that DVD to put on my “to sell” pile, I found it still had the dispatch receipt inside, which showed I bought it in… 2010. A whole decade ago! Sometimes I worry about my sense of the passage of time…
  • As you can tell (as if you didn’t already know), picture quality is important to me. So I could probably write an entire post about the weirdness I’ve been experiencing with Netflix’s PQ of late. I started streaming The Platform, but after it maintained a speed of just 0.57 Mbps — and looked terrible because of it — I gave up and, er, sourced it elsewhere. I’ve tried it again several times since, at different times of the day and night, and it’s always 0.57 Mbps. The same thing happened with Missing Link, although that was 1.21 Mbps so was somewhat more watchable (I still went and got a better copy from somewhere else, though). That led me to try about a dozen more titles, all of which came through at completely different rates, some reasonable, some not. It doesn’t seem to be connected to them needing different amounts of data or needing some time to get up to speed, either — it appears to be totally random. And it doesn’t seem to waver. I had decided to just cancel my Netflix subscription until all this is over (because I presume it’s connected to the speed-limiting they’re reported to be doing in Europe) — after all, it’s not as if I don’t have enough else to watch… but there’s loads of stuff I really do want to see on Netflix, and some of it is still streaming at a reasonable quality. So, I’m undecided.
  • As you can tell from the lack of blue text in the listing above, I haven’t reviewed a single film from this month’s viewing. I thought this might be the first time that’s happened, so I trawled back through all 118 monthly updates to check, and I can confirm… it’s not. In fact, it last happened less than a year ago, in July 2019. You have to go back over five more years, to May 2014, to find the time it happened previous to that; but it happened once in 2013 and three times in 2012, too. So, yeah, not really news.
  • I feel like the only person in the world who hasn’t (re)watched Contagion this month. If you’re interested, my quickie review from when I did watch it is here.



The 58th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
I saw quite a few great films this month, and usually that would make this choice very hard, but I fell head over heels for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes. I don’t think it comes up too often as one of his very best, but it’s definitely one of my favourites from his whole filmography.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I know it’s an acclaimed classic, but the film I least enjoyed actually watching this month was The Battle of Algiers.

Best 3D of the Month
I watched six new feature films and two shorts in 3D this month (plus four more features in the Rewatchathon), which I expect is a personal best. Setting aside the quality of the film itself, the one with the very best 3D was The Mad Magician. It’s in black & white, which was a bit weird at first (not sure I’ve ever seen a black & white film in 3D before), but because it’s from the ’50s it was actually shot in 3D, not post-converted, and while post-conversions are often very good nowadays, there’s so much extra subtle detail you get when something’s been shot in stereo for real.

Best Twist of the Month
Who doesn’t enjoy a twist? Filmmakers certainly do, and so they abound this month — even The LEGO Movie 2 has one (kinda). Prime examples include Harakiri (which keeps you on your toes with constantly shifting information), Knives Out (which has more up its sleeve than simply whodunnit), and So Dark the Night (that is a whodunnit, but if you watch it, try to read as little as possible first). But the winner this month is The Invisible Guest, because it managed to get almost as far as the reveal before I guessed what was really going on, in part by peppering plenty of about-turns along the way. Nicely done.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
It’s a long-standing observations that TV-related posts do well in this category, especially when they’re given plenty of time to amass hits. So, as I posted my 56th TV column way back on the 8th, it’s no surprise to see it win out easily. (The highest film post was The Lion King.)



As I mentioned in this month’s viewing notes, I didn’t rewatch Contagion; but that aside, my Rewatchathon is going rather well this year, racing ahead of target. Mainly, I’ve been revisiting in 3D films I’d previously only seen in 2D.

#9 The LEGO Movie 3D (2014)
#10 The Lion King 3D (2019)
#11 Godzilla 3D (2014)
#12 Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942)
#13 Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)
#14 Mission: Impossible – Fallout 3D (2018)

Starting with the 3D, then, that Fallout link takes you to my full review of it in 3D, so no need to repeat myself. My Lion King review isn’t expressly about the 3D, but, as I do discuss in the review, I was impressed by it, and it led me to even enjoy the film a little more. As with most computer animated films, The LEGO Movie looks awesome in 3D. Indeed, the skilful way the filmmakers emulated the scale of LEGO is only emphasised by the use of depth here. Despite the fact I already owned the (2D-only) Special Special Edition, I bought another copy in 3D on the strength of the 3D presentations of the LEGO Batman and Ninjago movies, and I wasn’t disappointed. (Now I just ought to watch some of the SSE-exclusive bonus features to justify that purchase…)

Godzilla’s 3D didn’t generate much comment from me, which is a shame because you’d think the scale would lend itself. It’s not bad, just not special. The film itself is not perfect either, but it’s a darn sight better than most people give it credit for. One thing that’s often criticised is how sparingly Godzilla is actually in it, but I think writer-director Gareth Edwards paced it just right — when the big guy finally turns up, it’s an electric moment.

I totally forgot that I’d randomly rewatched Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon in December 2017, but colourised. This time was the original black & white version, as part of my rewatch of the whole Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series on Blu-ray. I more or less stand by my original review, which I also stood by in 2017 (though I’m back to being less keen on Lionel Atwill’s Moriarty again), so I guess my opinion on this one is fairly certain. However, I liked Sherlock Holmes in Washington more than I’d remembered; though my original review (linked above, obv) isn’t that damning, so clearly its poorness had self-inflated in my memory. That said, I do still think it’s one of the series’ weakest outings.


I normally begin this section by looking at the stuff I failed to see on the big screen last month, but, well, that’s dried up, hasn’t it? However, though it may feel like Coronavirus has been denying us social experiences for, like, ever, it’s actually only been a couple of weeks — before everything went completely self-isolating-tastic, cinemas were full of Onward, Military Wives, Misbehaviour, Bloodshot, Fantasy Island, and Dark Waters. Even My Spy actually came out over here (in the US it was pushed back into Bond’s vacated release slot. Presumably they’ll be abandoning that now too).

Now, of course, you have these “direct from the cinema” rentals popping up, including Emma (which I’ve seen), The Hunt, and The Invisible Man, plus Bloodshot and Military Wives from the previous list (no Onward this side of the pond). They mostly cost £15.99 for a 48-hour rental (though Bloodshot has gone straight to £13.99 to own, suggesting they don’t expect anyone will want to). At that price, it isn’t worth it to me. For comparison, a ticket at my local cinema is £5.75 — I’m interested in seeing most of those films, but not almost-three-times-what-it-would’ve-cost-me-at-the-cinema interested. I’ll wait ’til they drop to a sensible price and/or hit disc.

Some digital rentals have drawn me in, though — the cut-price ones Amazon offer as a perk of being a Prime member. For either 99p or £1.99 a pop I’ve got Aniara, End of the Century, It: Chapter Two, Rambo: Last Blood, and Ready or Not all ticking down to expiry dates throughout April.

I have less compunction about splurging money on disc purchases. Last month I mentioned that “I got a bit carried away with Blu-ray purchases”, with 16 films on disc among my failures. This month puts that in the shade, with a ridiculous 40 films added to my Blu-ray collection (and I actually watched some new stuff I bought, so the true total acquired this month is even higher). Specific splurges include an Arrow sale (mostly noirs, like The Big Clock, Nightfall, and Phantom Lady, plus the Sister Street Fighter collection); an Indicator sale (their seven-film Samuel Fuller box set, plus A Dandy in Aspic, Footsteps in the Fog, The Legacy, and No Orchids for Miss Blandish — none of which I’d even heard of before Indicator released them, but they do make things sound so good); and a bunch of 3D discs of films I’d already seen and enjoyed to some degree (Bolt, Tangled, Pan, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Noah, which is available from Germany in a well-reviewed 3D conversion). Talking of Germany, I also just discovered they’ve had Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris on Blu-ray for a couple of years, so I imported that too (for a very reasonable price, I must say, from Amazon UK). I also bought Criterion’s release of The Blob at an offer price from them, and Bong Joon Ho’s The Host at an offer price from HMV. While trying to fill out a different multi-buy offer I upgraded my old DVD of the X Files movie to Blu, which I knew would put me on track to upgrade the whole series eventually… and it did, just a week or two later, getting it for a good price secondhand on eBay… and then I upgraded I Want to Believe, just to complete the set. I also upgraded The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — yeah, I know, but I actually quite liked it back in the day, and I saw this article on Twitter that swayed me. And that’s not even everything, but dear God, it’ll do.

Back to streaming, then, and the big names have been trotting out plenty of content this month, only spurred on by everyone being stuck at home right now — and by the launch of a major new competitor in Disney+. I haven’t subscribed, nor taken the free trial (yet), so I don’t really know what’s on there besides what everyone’s been talking about, i.e. a months-late release of Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian (which they’re sticking to releasing weekly, even though it’s all been out in the US — and on piracy sites — for months), and the live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp.

Over at the usual suspects, Netflix had their second back of Studio Ghibli films, which for me means Arrietty (though I own it on Blu-ray), The Cat Returns, and My Neighbours the Yamadas. I also want to rewatch Spirited Away, and as I only own it on DVD, HD on Netflix is tempting. Most of their original additions this month seemed to be TV series, although there was Mark Wahlberg in Spenser Confidential, but it was so poorly reviewed that I don’t intend to bother. From the back catalogue, they just recently added The Death of Mr Lazarescu. I remember that getting recommended a lot back when it came out. I never really knew what it was about, but the Netflix blurb begins: “Amid a pandemic”, so I can see why they’ve acquired it now.

As for Amazon, they could offer up recent stuff like The Aeronauts (one of their own, so I think it even bypassed disc), Blinded by the Light, and Midsommar. Other additions catching my eye included sci-fi drama Marjorie Prime (I heard about this somewhere only recently, but I forget the context other than it was a recommendation); The Immigrant (Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Jeremy Renner in a film from the director of Ad Astra); Antiviral (a sci-fi-horror-thriller written & directed by Brandon “son of David” Cronenberg); and Intacto (a film I’d completely forgotten all about, but the poster image struck a deep memory of something that had once been highly recommended and I really wanted to see, probably right back when it first came out, 18 years ago(!) Well, now it’s on my watchlist again).

Both of those added a lot more than I’m bothering to list here, so if you’re a subscriber to either, do be sure to keep an eye on sites like New on Netflix UK or this Amazon equivalent.

Finally, I went to cancel my Now TV Sky Cinema subscription at the start of the month, but they offered me a great deal: three monthscompletely free. You can’t turn that down, can you? Even if I only watched one film on there during those three months, the cost-benefit ratio would be fine. They add a new premiere every day, plus a handful of other titles now and then, but, despite that, only a couple of newcomers were worthy of note to me: The Goonies (yep, never seen that), Her Smell (people seem to keep recommending it), Robert the Bruce (the unofficial sort-of-sequel to Braveheart), and The Secret Life of Pets 2 (the first one was alright, so why not?)

(Whew, this section is getting damn long nowadays — and that’s without the further 50 films I had on my long-list but decided not to mention. Maybe I should start doing it as a standalone post — this month it’s over 1,000 words, which is about the same length as one of my longer film reviews!)


Right now who knows what next week will bring, never mind next month? Though if things carry on as they are (and it looks like the will for a good while yet), perhaps it’ll be a record-breaking month. Or perhaps not. Who knows!