I’ve watched about 37 hours’ worth of Deadwood and its special features this month, so you’ll excuse the colloquialism in the title. (I nearly called this the “Cocksucking Monthly Review”, but that seemed like it might lead to some confusion amongst anyone who just saw the post’s title.) But while the acclaimed TV Western feels like it’s dominated my viewing these past few weeks, I’ve also found plenty of time for films, as we shall see…
#30 Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
#31 Bruce Almighty (2003)
#32 Isle of Dogs (2018)
#33 Life is Beautiful (1997), aka La vita è bella
#34 Mandy (2018)
#35 Skyscraper 3D (2018)
#36 Free Solo (2018)
#37 Shaft (2000)
#38 Holmes & Watson (2018)
#39 Triple Frontier (2019)
#39a Deadpool 2: Super Duper $@%!#& Cut (2018)
#40 The Italian Job (1969)
#41 Downsizing (2017)
#42 Samaritan Zatoichi (1968), aka Zatôichi kenka-daiko
#43 Brigsby Bear (2017)
#44 Upgrade (2018)
#45 You Were Never Really Here (2017)
#46 Starship Troopers (1997)
#47 Escape from New York (1981)
#48 The Highwaymen (2019)
#48a Paperman 3D (2012)
#49 Waltz with Bashir (2008), aka Vals Im Bashir
- So, I watched 21 brand-new feature films in March.
- Add in that alternate cut of Deadpool 2 and five rewatches (see below) and you’ve got… a lotta movies. (I really ought to start keeping track of monthly overall totals for statistical purposes such as this.)
- As for things I do keep track of, it ticked many boxes. For starters, it’s only the 17th month (out of 147) with 20+ films. It’s also the fourth March in a row to reach that figure, which is a record — no other month has reached 20+ more than twice ever, never mind in a row.
- As for averages, it beats or equals all of ’em: the average for March (previously 13.8, now 14.4), for 2019 to date (previously 14, now 16.3), and for the last 12 months (which was and remains 21.1).
- Just about the only achievement it doesn’t have is reaching #50 — I was there by this time in 2016 and 2018. Still, 2019 is likely to tie with 2017 for third place, and that’s nothing to be sniffed at.
- This month’s Blindspot film: Paul Verhoeven’s satirical sci-fi, Starship Troopers, which I didn’t enjoy as much as I’d expected.
- This month’s WDYMYHS film: anti-war foreign language Oscar winner Life is Beautiful, which sits high on lists like the IMDb Top 250, but which I didn’t think was that good. Not the most successful month for these two projects, then.
- From last month’s “failures” I watched just Upgrade, Isle of Dogs, and The Matrix (see Rewatchathon).
The 46th Monthly Arbitrary Awards
Favourite Film of the Month
I remain amazed that I find the films of Wes Anderson to be wonderful and exciting rather than self-consciously quirky and consequently irritating, but there we go, it seems I love the guy’s work, and the same goes for his latest, Isle of Dogs. If you’ve not already got the pun, say the title out loud quickly. I was destined to love this film.
Least Favourite Film of the Month
An easy one this month, because Holmes & Watson is at least as terrible as you’ve no doubt heard. It’s almost impressively bad, in fact — like, if you set out to make an unfunny comedy, you’d struggle to beat this. More on that theme when I get round to reviewing it in full.
Thing You Were Only Supposed to Blow Off of the Month
The bloody doors!
Black Private Dick That’s a Sex Machine to All the Chicks, That Would Risk His Neck For His Brother Man, That Won’t Cop Out When There’s Danger All About of the Month
Shaft!
The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
In many respects the winner this month was last month’s TV review. It was up for less than 48 hours in February, meaning it received most of its hits so far in March… and it received a lot of hits: it was my most-read single post of the month by a factor of three. But that’s not the way the cookie crumbles: it was posted last month, so it ain’t eligible. From this month’s crop, we can (almost-)always rely on a new Netflix release to produce the goods, and for March that came in the shape of Triple Frontier. (The Highwaymen came a definitive second, despite my review having been online for only 32 hours.)
After falling slightly short last month, March gets this back exactly on track.
#8 The Matrix (1999)
#9 Crocodile Dundee (1986)
#10 Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
#11 The Italian Job (2003)
#12 Wreck-It Ralph 3D (2012)
The Matrix turned 20 yesterday. It seems so weird that it was originally a March release. I mean, nowadays we get blockbusters year-round, but back in the ’90s it was still summer that saw most of the big crowdpleasers hit the big screen. Anyway, the anniversary is not why I rewatched it — I’ve been meaning to for years (I haven’t seen it in over a decade), and the 4K trilogy box set was one of my first purchases on the format. It looks great, of course. I meant to rewatch the sequels too (I know some people like to pretend they don’t even exist, but I’m always curious to reevaluate), but simply didn’t get round to them. Hopefully next month.
Of course, I did find time for other rewatches. Crocodile Dundee and Four Weddings were both films I’ve not seen since the early/mid ’90s, and both held up better than I expected. The former, in particular, I expected little of when viewed today — I imagined it was an of-its-time blockbuster that might yield some nostalgia value at best, but it actually remains quite sharp, in its way, with a fish-out-of-water premise that hasn’t aged badly. Four Weddings feels like it would’ve endured better, for some reason (maybe just because it had a more lasting impact), but it is still a quarter of a century old and so I feared it might feel past it. In fact, I think it’s almost underrated, a very funny but also emotional and truthful film.
The 2003 Italian Job I watched purely because I finally got round to the original (see #40 of the main list) and fancied giving the remake another whirl afterwards. The original is so gloriously ’60s — irreverent, mischievous, anarchic — but I do enjoy the ’00s blockbuster slickness of this remake too. It’s no classic, but it’s solid fun. Also: good golly, it’s 16 years old! If they ever did get round to making the long-mooted sequel, it’d count as a revival/reunion at this point.
Finally, Wreck-It Ralph, rewatched in 3D ahead of the sequel hitting UK disc today. Said sequel has no 3D disc release anywhere in the world, which has pissed me right off (at least with Spider-Verse’s UK & US 3D no-show I had a raft of import options), especially as I didn’t particularly care for the original and have heard the sequel is weaker, so was looking forward to the 3D as a way to elevate my enjoyment. Ho hum. That said, I actually enjoyed the first one more this time round. I still feel like there’s something slightly off about it — the story’s a bit warmed-over, and the overall concept and style doesn’t really fit as a Disney canon movie, for me. The 3D is as spot-on as you’d expect, at least.
This month’s biggest miss is surely Captain Marvel, the latest superhero mega-hit from… well, you can guess who. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those dickheads who attempted to boycott the film (and failed miserably — it’s been a ginormous financial success), I’ve just been too busy to find time to get to the cinema. I guess I’ll have to try soon though, because I intend to see Avengers: Endgame when it comes out and I imagine I should see Captain Marvel first.
At home, my most recent disc purchase I’ve not got round to is Creed II. It only came out here last Monday and I was away most of the week, so I’m sure I’ll get to it soon. Other recent new releases include newly-animated ’60s Doctor Who serial The Macra Terror (not a film, but it should’ve been in this month’s TV review) and Jackie Chan classic Wheels on Meals. I also bought a whole load of titles via various sales and discounts, some of which are punts on movies that get mixed or poor reviews (Hackers, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Everest, the latter two in 3D), others that are Rewatchathon candidates (L.A. Confidential, Contact, Game Night), and one film which continues to baffle my memory, because I should know if I’ve seen it or not but I just can’t remember (that’d be E.T., which I now own in 4K).
I’ve got a rental of Searching that I need to get to in the next couple of days, and I also really need to pay attention to the films sat on my V+ box — for reasons I might get into next month, I’ll be having to get rid of it sometime in the next few weeks, and I’ve still got 29 films recorded on there. There’s no way I’ll ever get through all of them, so I’ll have to prioritise somehow. Possible highlights (depending on what you define as a highlight) include Berberian Sound Studio, The Eyes of Orson Welles, The Help, Holy Motors, A Little Princess, The Last King of Scotland, Modesty Blaise, Tangerine, and To Have and Have Not. Yes, it’s a random ol’ grab bag — but whenever isn’t that an apt description of my viewing choices?
We’re in the endgame now.
#45 Chappie (2015)
#53 Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
#60 
I have very mixed feelings about Person of Interest, whose fourth season has only made it to UK TV in the past few weeks (the belated fifth starts in the US in May, they announced yesterday). When it works, it’s a good quality vigilante/procedural action show; but its array of arc plots are as unrewarding as they are never-ending, and are consequently unsatisfying to a fault (literally). However, now that I’m so deep into it, and with cancellation finally confirmed (the foreshortened and delayed fifth season will indeed be its last, as was also finally announced yesterday), I feel like I’m in ’til the bitter end. The makers just bloody better have had the notice to get a proper ending into that now-final episode…
When Amazon picked up Ripper Street after the success of the third series, it was for a fourth and fifth season totalling 13 episodes. The show’s writers seem to have taken the double recommission to heart and crafted an arc plot to last throughout those two seasons, meaning this first half ends on a big surprise and with all sorts of things left up in the air. And now we have to wait. Still, it’ll be fascinating to see how there are six or seven more episodes left, considering the predicament they’ve put the characters in.
I think I sounded a little more dismissive of Shetland than I’d intended in 
The quality of this revival has certainly been all over the place. I was wary of episode three, Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster, because comedy always seems at odds with The X Files’ grand conspiracy storylines, but I thought it was hilarious and deserving of its acclaim as the best episode of the season. Home Again felt like solid standard X Files fodder, and Babylon was clearly trying to be zeitgeisty but perhaps wasn’t fully thought-through. As for the much-maligned finale, My Struggle II… well, it was a mess, and over-ambitious, and a stupid idea to end it on a cliffhanger when no one knew how well the revival would go down. Let’s hope Chris Carter is right that there’ll definitely be more.
This month, I have mostly been missing The Night Manager. The critically-acclaimed ratings hit is, as you likely know, a spy thriller adapted from a John le Carré novel, which not only means it has pedigree, but that its star — Tumblr-beloved Marvel villain Tom Hiddleston — is now being tipped to take over as Bond. I wouldn’t know, I’ve not seen it yet.
#36 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Except, goodness, I couldn’t get it down to just five! From Connery alone you’ve got ‘Bond’ being bested in From Russia with Love, the iconic jetpack in Thunderball, and the trend-setting mini-adventure from Goldfinger. As the series rolls on there’s The Spy Who Loved Me and its parachute, Moonraker’s free-fall fistfight (you couldn’t do that today — everyone would assume it was CGI and it’d have no magic), and the perfectly staged training-exercise-gone-wrong from The Living Daylights. The Brosnan era really kicks in the action, first with another peerless mini-adventure in GoldenEye (and the bungee jump…!), then increasingly expansive and suitably witty openers to both Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough. Finally, the Craig era tipped the whole shebang on its head with Casino Royale’s moody black-and-white quickie, and Quantum of Solace’s attention-demanding car battle. Skyfall may have moved back towards the Brosnan mould, but it’s an exceptionally well done one.
#26 
#33 
100Films.co.uk 