2022 Statistics!

Posted on January 5, 2023 by badblokebob

It’s time once again for the highlight of the year (my highlight, at least) — the statistics! And because I love them so much, I’ve not really messed around with them. That’s to say, these are still based on my first-time watches from 2022 (as listed here), not only films I watched for the new-style Challenge.

Before the onslaught of numbers and graphs begin, I’ll just mention that, because I’m a Letterboxd Pro member, I get a yearly stats page over there too, which can be found here. In some places that’ll look a bit different to this one, because I also log whatever TV I’m allowed there; but it does have some interesting additional and alternative stats, like my most watched and highest rated stars and directors.

With that plugged, it’s time for the main event…

I watched 111 feature films for the first time in 2022. That’s my lowest total since 2013, when I watched 110, and my 6th lowest ever (out of 16 years).

Previously that still would’ve been “a success”, because my goal was to simply watch 100 new films. But this year I changed things up a bit. Unfortunately, as I’ve already discussed (a couple of times), I failed. Nonetheless, I watched 89 films towards my Challenge, including 71 of those new feature films, 17 rewatches, and one short film.

Outside of the strictures of the Challenge, I rewatched three further films, for a total of 20 rewatches. That, too, ranks as my 6th weakest year. Not ideal, but — in a very literal sense — it could be worse.

NB: I have no rewatch data for 2007 and only incomplete numbers for 2008.

I also watched seven short films, which may not sound like many but is still my 5th best year for the form. These won’t be counted in most of the stats that follow, except where they’re noted alongside the features’ running time.

The total running time of my first-watch features was 189 hours and 21 minutes. Add in the shorts and that rises by over an hour to 190 hours and 33 minutes. (I would also factor any alternate cuts I watched for the first time into that “others” block, but there weren’t any this year.) Unsurprisingly, that lines up with the lesser number of films watched to be one of my lowest totals ever.

Here’s how that viewing played out across the year, month by month. The dark blue line is my first-time watches and the pale blue is rewatches. This is the fifth year I’ve been including this particular graph, and when you look back over them all, the main thing you can learn is that I really have no consistency. The only common factor I can spot is a relative drop in the September/October region each year, often dragging August or November in with it.

Next, the ways in which I watched those films. Despite including a specific DVDs category in my Challenge, I couldn’t turn things round for physical media: digital is once again the year’s most prolific viewing format, with 77 films, or 69.37% of my viewing. That’s actually down on the last two years (both over 72%), but still up on every year before that. One day I’ll do the right thing and get this down below Blu-ray… or so I keep telling myself…

Digital does have a slight advantage in that several different formats and services contribute to it, though the reason I lump them together is that there’s fundamentally no difference quality-wise between downloading and streaming a film nowadays (most of the time). This year, downloads beat any of the individual streamers, accounting for 26 films (33.8% of the digital total). A number of factors contribute to my wanton piracy, primarily getting hold of specific films in a reliably-accessible format for the sake of my Challenge, as well as acquiring various obscurities. Following on, the top streamer was Netflix, unseating regular victor Amazon Prime, with 14 films (18.2%). Amazon was close behind, though, with 12 films (15.6%). Both are lower than last year, unsurprisingly, but Disney+ actually saw a slight gain in raw numbers, from seven to nine films, which more than doubled its percentage, from 4.7% to 11.7%. Not too far behind was Now on seven (9.1%), with the category rounded out by half-a-dozen others: iPlayer and All 4 each with three (3.9%), MUBI with two (2.6%), and one each (1.3%) for Apple TV+, Talking Pictures TV Encore, and YouTube.

As usual, it was a distant second place for Blu-ray with 25 films (22.5%) — half of last year’s total in raw numbers, and a slight drop in percentage too.

That’s slightly tempered by an increase in my DVD viewing, the result of forcing my hand by making it a category in my Challenge. It should’ve resulted in at least 12 DVDs watched, but I ended up bending the rules and counting some rewatches. Anyway, the format still rallied to eight films — four times as many as last year, and increasing its representation from 0.97% to 7.2%. I imagine the DVD category will remain for 2023’s Challenge.

There was just one other format represented in 2022’s viewing: TV, with only one film (0.9%). The bigger news there is that, in the end, I didn’t make it to the cinema in the whole of 2022, the first time that’s happened since 2014. Funny kind of film fan I am, eh? I imagine it’ll be back in 2023: I’m still hoping to make time to see Avatar 2, and there are multiple big-screen-benefitting films out later in the year (not least a new Mission: Impossible). For now, here’s TV’s graph, showing how the once-mighty (look at it in 2010) have fallen…

Looking at formats from a different angle, I only watched one film in 3D in the whole of 2022. That might sound natural — 3D TVs have been phased out; disc releases in the format are almost nonexistent — but I’ve still got my 3D TV, and the releases are still coming, and I’ve got a large backlog of them to get through, anyway. So, I really should’ve watched more than one! Well, it would’ve been two, if I’d been able to find a genuine copy of Jackass 3D. I’ve managed to source most of the recent Marvel films in 3D (even though they only get a disc release in Japan nowadays), so if I finally catch up on those in 2023, the figure might be healthier next year.

As for the cutting-edge format du jour, 4K Ultra HD, that fared better, with 24 films — the exact same figure as last year, which in percentage terms is almost a doubling, from 11.6% to 21.6%. At the other end of the spectrum, the increase in DVDs, plus some harder-to-find SD downloads and streams, meant I watched 20 films in SD — the lowest raw number since 2017, but the highest percentage (18.0%) since 2015. Watching a lot in SD is nothing to be proud of (HD is usually so much nicer), but some stuff is simply only available in that format. Better than not being viewable at all. Meanwhile, ‘regular’ HD has been decreasing as a share of my viewing since UHD came along in 2017, but this year it tumbles to its lowest figure yet, just 60.4%

Unsurprisingly, it’s mostly older films that are only available in SD, and so an increase in one reflects an increase in the other. To wit, when it comes to the age of films I watched, the two most recent decades are not my two most-watched, for only the second time ever. Number 1 belies this fact: the 2020s top the chart for the first time, with 34 films (30.6%). But where you’d expect to find the 2010s in second place (having been the #1 decade from 2012 to 2021), it was actually the 1980s with 16 films (14.4%). That’s another side effect of my Challenge, where one category required me to watch 12 films from 1986 (even though I only got through ten of them in the end). It’s in joint third that we find the 2010s, sharing a place with the the 1940s (no doubt boosted by my Challenge’s noir category), each with 11 films (9.9%).

Every decade since the 1900s was represented in my viewing this year, as they were in 2020 and 2021; although, as with those years, the 1900s themselves only feature via shorts, so don’t ‘count’ here. Counting down the years in size order, in fifth place was the 1950s with nine films (8.1%), followed by the 2000s on seven (6.3%), the ’30s and ’60s both on six (5.4%), the ’90s on five (4.5%), the ’70s on four (3.6%), and one (0.9%) each for the 1910s and 1920s.

In recent years, I’ve been pleased to see an increasing variety in the production countries and languages of the films I’ve been watching. Unfortunately, watching so many fewer this year has wiped out some of those gains. So, while the USA has always been the dominant country of production, the 81 films it had a hand in this year represent 72.97% of my viewing, up from the sub-70% figures of the last two years. That said, I’ve been counting this figure since 2012, and that percentage is still the fourth lowest ever, so things could certainly be worse.

On the other hand, there were only 17 production countries this year, half of last year’s 35, and the lowest number since 2012. As ever, second place went to the UK with 26 films (23.4%). France was third for the second year in a row (and the seventh time in eleven years), with 11 films (9.9%). Tied for fourth were Canada and Japan with four apiece (3.6%), while Germany had three (2.7%), and on two (1.8%) each were Australia, Belgium, Israel, Italy, and Russia (provided the latter also includes the Soviet Union). That leaves six other countries with one film apiece. Countries that often feature but didn’t this year included China, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, and Sweden.

It’s a similar story with languages, naturally: there were only 12 spoken languages (plus American Sign Language and some silent films), my lowest total since 2013. Top of the pile by an obscene amount was English, featuring in 103 films (92.8%). For context, in second place was French, spoken in just five films (4.5%). Normally I’d list more uncommonly-heard languages here, but there weren’t really any this year… except, for the second year in a row, Klingon.

A total of 99 directors plus eight directing partnerships helmed the feature films I watched in 2022, with a further three directors and two partnerships making my short film viewing. Only three directors were behind multiple features, the lowest number of repeat offenders ever (tied with 2012). The most came from Jeff Tremaine with three (the first three Jackass movies), while the other two were Stanley Kubrick (his pair of early-career noirs) and Alfred Werker (another couple of noirs). Additionally, two of the shorts I watched were masterminded by the great Georges Méliès.

For a while now I’ve been specifically charting the number of female directors whose work I’ve watched each year. This was steadily improving, but 2022 has seen an about-face in fortunes, dropping to my lowest level since 2017. My viewing this year included four films with a female director — three credited solo (Siân Heder’s CODA, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter, and Carrie Cracknell’s Persuasion), and one as part of a duo with a chap (Vanessa Yuille co-directing Doctor Who Am I). Counting the latter as half a film, that works out as just 3.15% of my viewing, which is sandwiched between 2017’s 2.84% and 2018’s 3.26%, but a long way off 2020’s high of 11.44%. As I’ve said before, I neither avoid nor seek out female directors — maybe I should do more of the latter, but I generally just watch the films I watch and see what comes out in the wash. The industry, undoubtedly, still needs to do more. As ever, I hope this graph will improve again in the future, though I doubt it will ever reach 50/50.

Before I dig into 2022’s star ratings, let’s take a look at a couple of viewing projects I always have on the go. First, the IMDb Top 250, which I’ve been vaguely working on since before this blog even began. At the time of writing, five films from my 2022 viewing appear on the list. However, because it’s ever-changing, the number I have left to see has actually gone down this year by 10, to 18 films. I’m so close to the end now, before long I may end up making it part of my Challenge to help finish it off. The current positions of the ones I saw this year range from 87th (High and Low) to 227th (To Be or Not to Be).

Next, my “50 Unseen” — the list I publish at the end of every year of 50 notable new films I missed that year. I’ve continued to track those ‘misses’ down the years, and went through a period where they helped decide a lot of my viewing. Recently, though, not so much. Last year was weak for continuing to complete these, and 2022 has been even weaker: in 2021, I watched a measly 21 films across all 14 lists; in 2022, I watched just 16 films across all 15 lists. Nearly all of those — 14 — were from 2021’s 50. That’s a better ‘first year’ than last year (when I only watched 12 from 2020’s 50), but is otherwise poor. Randomly, the other two both came from 2010’s list.

In total, I’ve now seen 513 out of 750 ‘missed’ movies. That’s 68.4%, a big drop from recent years — the last time my completion rate was below 70% was back in 2017. It’s not as if there aren’t still plenty of movies I want to see on those lists (and there’ll be 50 more from 2022 added soon), so I need to pull my finger out there.

And so, we reach the finale of every review, and thus the climax of 2022’s statistics: the scores.

Before we begin, I’m going to repeat the caveat I gave last year: this stat factors in every new film I watched in 2022, even those for which I’ve yet to publish a review (this year, that’s 27% of them — it was 98% last year). That means there are some where I’m still flexible on my precise score — usually films I’ve awarded 3.5 or 4.5 on Letterboxd, but which I insist on rounding to a whole star here. For the sake of completing these stats, I’ve assigned a whole-star rating to every film, but it’s possible I’ll change my mind when I eventually post a review (it’s happened before). Still, this section should remain broadly accurate.

The headline fact here is that I award a mere six five-star ratings in 2022. At just 5.4% of my first-time watches, that’s by far my lowest ever — the next worst was 2012, when I gave more than double (14 films, 13%). Was it that bad a year? Well, yes and no — I do feel like I didn’t watch many great films this year, but I did watch a lot of very good ones. Has my marking got harsher as I’ve got older / more experienced? I think it has, which is probably only right. But I’m still a relatively lenient grader overall.

For example, the most prolific rating I handed out remained four stars, which in 2022 I gave to 54 films (48.7%). That’s the highest percentage of four-star ratings I’ve given since 2016. Maybe a couple more would’ve found their way up into the five-star bracket in the past, but — as I said — I think I generally watched films that were good-but-not-great in 2022.

Continuing down the chart, there were 42 three-star films (37.8%). These three “good” ratings therefore make up 91.9% of my first-time watches in 2022, showing it certainly wasn’t a bad year. Well, it never is, really — but more on that in a minute, when I get to the overall average score.

In the negative pile, then, we find eight two-star films (7.2%) and just one one-star film (0.9%). As I said, I’m still a lenient marker overall — films have to be truly bad to receive a negative rating from me, and absolutely dreadful to sink to the depths of a single-star rating — in the entire history of 100 Films, just 1.32% of films have received that ignominy.

So, finally, the average score for 2022. The short version is 3.5 out of 5 — the same as last year, and only the third time the average has been below 3.6. I refer you to my earlier comments about how, if 2022 is “not a bad year”, then no year has ever really been bad. To get a few decimal places deeper (and thus provide a more accurate comparison), 2022 scored 3.505. That’s slightly down on 2021’s 3.507, meaning 2022 takes its place as my second-lowest scoring year ever, ahead of 2012’s egregiously poor 3.352. They’re all clearly above 3.0, though, so — I reiterate — no truly bad years, just weaker ones.

And that’s a good thing. Who wants to deliberately watch more bad films to get a ‘truer’ average? Or you could start hating on films to adjust your ratings curve down, but that’s self-defeating — just accept that, if you like films, you will like more films. I get annoyed with people who claim to be “film fans” but give most of their viewing low scores — are you sure you actually like films? At the other end of the scale, maybe it would be nice to watch even more even better films and pull my average up. It certainly wouldn’t hurt. But I think it’s simply the luck of the draw — I’ve seen many an acclaimed film that didn’t work for me, as well as plenty of stuff that’s been widely dismissed that I love. As long as the majority of my viewing is at least “good”, that’s good enough for me.

Talking of good and great films, next I’ll be finishing off my review of the year with my pick of the top 10% of films I watched for the first time in 2022.

My Most-Read Posts of 2022

Posted on January 3, 2023 by badblokebob

I published 84 posts here in 2022 — that’s up from the 55 in 2021, which is good because that was a major part of the point of my relaunch; but it’s still down from the 120+ I posted in 2020 and 2019, and over 200 each in 2018 and 2017. That said, it’s partly because I’ve been lumping most reviews together into “weeks” rather than posting them individually.

One thing it hasn’t done is reverse the slide in my traffic. I guess people are reading blogs less and less nowadays, maybe? Or perhaps it’s just that I’ve stopped posting my TV columns, which were my big hitters hits-wise. It was insulting IMDb voters’ response to the Game of Thrones finale that gave me my biggest year ever, after all. Whatever the reason, in 2022 my views were the lowest since I started sharing my reviews via IMDb’s External Reviews section in 2017 (IMDb devaluing links to reviews offsite is another possible explanation here). They’re still at more than double where they were in 2016, though, so… um, there’s still further to fall?

Anyway, here are the five posts that attracted the most of those paltry views. #1 stood out in particular, as this graph of the posts’ relative success shows:

Now, you might like to know exactly which those posts are…

My Top 5 Most-Viewed New Posts in 2022

5) Weeks 1–3

Featuring reviews of Carry on Spying, Penny Serenade, The Navigator, In the Line of Fire, Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper, and Free Guy. This is most noteworthy for nearly being a three-way tie: Weeks 1–3 had just a single hit more than each of the posts tied for 6th place, Archive 5 Vol.1 and Vol.5.

4) Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Who ya gonna call? No idea why this one charted so high (my posting wasn’t especially timely to any of its release dates, I don’t think), other than the perennial popularity of its franchise. Plus, like the posts in 5th and 2nd, the fact it was posted in February means it had most of the year to rack up hits.

3) Prey

Another popular franchise with a much-anticipated new instalment. This one I posted on the weekend it came out, which likely helped it gain views.

2) Weeks 4–6

Featuring reviews of Voyage of Time: An IMAX Documentary, L’avventura, She’s Gotta Have It, Don’t Look Up, Jackass: The Movie, and Jackass Number Two. Again, I can’t see anything particularly special about this that would elevate it to second place, except perhaps that reviews of streaming titles often seem to do better — Don’t Look Up is, of course, a Netflix film, while Voyage of Time has been on MUBI. Perhaps the release of Jackass Forever had people looking at writing on the previous films, too.

1) Sight & Sound’s The 100 Greatest Films of All Time (2022 edition)

Far and away my most-viewed post of the year, with 4.6 times as many hits as #2. As I speculated in my December review, the success of this post is likely due to it being both timely (even if it was posted 24 hours after the news broke, people were still discussing it on social media) and newsworthy (being a once-in-a-decade occasion deemed to be important to all cinephiles). There’s no reason my particular piece on it should receive more hits than anyone else’s, so I can only assume bigger sites saw even more traffic from it.

December’s Failures

Posted on January 2, 2023 by badblokebob

13 years ago, I went to see Avatar on opening day, because it was the only chance I’d get over the Christmas period. This year, with long-delayed sequel Avatar: The Way of Water releasing at the same time, I… didn’t do the same thing. But it’s been a massive hit (even without my one ticket purchase? Shocking!), which means it’s still regularly playing, so I might catch it this week.

It’s fair to say there’s been nothing else quite so notable on the theatrical release slate, partly because everything cleared out of Avatar‘s way. The parting shot from the rest of cinema at the start of the month was Santa-based actioner Violent Night, which sounds fun in concept but I heard was disappointing in execution. I guess I’ll try to remember to catch it on streaming next December. Otherwise, it was mostly small independent-type titles or limited-release Netflix flicks. Either way, not much of that plays around me (as ever, by “around me” I mean “not at the cinema that’s a five-minutes drive away”. If I were prepared to travel 30–60 minutes (not that far, in the grand scheme of things), I could choose to see more of this stuff. But as getting off my arse to go to that five-minutes-away cinema is hard enough, I’m hardly likely to trek further afield.

Of course, nowadays there’s less need to, with stuff making it to streaming quicker than ever. Or even to TV, with latest Bond flick No Time to Die receiving its UK TV premiere yesterday, just 15 months after its theatrical release. Remember when we had to wait three to five years for that kind of thing? And it’s not just shorter windows, what with streamers producing their own high-profile content. There were more big titles premiering on Netflix this month than at cinemas. Chief among them, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (to give it its full, unwieldy, unnecessary title). I’m very much looking forward to it — so much so that I didn’t watch it, because I had a rotten cold over Christmas and knew I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it properly. Another one to slot in this week, then.

While that ended up dominating the conversation (and Netflix’s viewing chart), in December they also brought us Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, Noah Baumbach’s White Noise, a racy (read: sex-filled) new adaptation of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Scandi monster movie Troll, computer-animated festive musical Scrooge: A Christmas Carol with a starry British voice cast (Luke Evans, Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Jonathan Pryce), and The Big 4, a new one from the director of Headshot and The Night Comes for Us, Timo Tjahjanto, which I hear has suitably extravagant action scenes. As if that wasn’t enough, I also spotted 7 Women and a Murder, an Italian comedy mystery about seven women trapped in a mansion solving a murder, making its international debut as a “Netflix Original” a year after being released in its native Italy. I guess they bought it in as something to offer people who’d just watched Glass Onion. Also of note, apparently, was Medieval — I’ve not heard anyone mention it, so I’ve no idea quite how this happened, but it was Netflix’s 3rd most-watched movie at one point over Christmas. Apparently it’s the story of a Czech commander who never lost a battle, and it stars Ben Foster, Michael Caine, Til Schweiger, and Matthew Goode. I guess “historical war movie with a few recognisable faces” appealed to people browsing Netflix for something new to bung on.

Other streamers focused on the Christmas period for their original titles, ticking the usual rom-com boxes, with the likes of Your Christmas or Mine? on Amazon Prime and Sky Cinema offering perhaps the most generically-titled movie ever, This is Christmas. Apparently it’s actually rather good (according to the one review I happened to read). Sky also premiered animated Terry Pratchett adaptation The Amazing Maurice, along with streaming debuts for the likes of Dreamworks animation The Bad Guys, “grey pound” target The Duke, Stephen King remake Firestarter, plus blockbusters (that I own on disc and really should’ve watched by now) The Batman and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Also The Nan Movie, but the less said about that the better. Amazon, meanwhile, had the streaming debut of Alex Garland’s Men, and gave a big push to Wonder Woman 1984 — bit odd, considering how long it’s been around. That said, I’ve still not seen it, so…

Over on Disney+, it was the usual deal of stuff rushed fresh from cinemas: their latest canon animation, Strange World, a riff on pulp sci-fi-/fantasy adventure flicks that I guess should be up my street, but doesn’t scream “Disney”; plus adult-focused fare, both acclaimed (Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin) and, um, less so (David O. Russell’s Amsterdam). Debuts elsewhere included Park Chan-wook’s latest, Decision to Leave, on MUBI, and Will Smith slavery action flick / wannabe-awards-contender Emancipation on Apple TV+.

As for the free TV-tied streamers, I’m sure they offered replays of their Christmas-schedule premieres, but I’d seen most of those already (except for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, which I actually own on 3D Blu-ray. I presume I heard the 3D was good or something, because the fact I still haven’t watched it indicates my broad level of interest). Anyway, catching my attention on iPlayer were the likes of A Bunch of Amateurs (about the amateur filmmakers of the long-running Bradford Film Club) and older flicks I really should’ve seen by now, like The Others and Out of Sight; plus obscure spy thriller When Eight Bells Toll, which I missed earlier in the year so appreciate getting another go at. As for All 4, they cycled in a bunch of stuff they’ve shown before and I’ve not got round to but, hey, you never know, maybe this time. We’re talking Black Rain, Monos, Wild Rose, Saint Maud, Rosemary’s Baby, The Red Turtle, several others… Someday.

Finally, as always, stuff I forked out for (or, as it’s Christmas, was given) on good ol’ shiny disc. This was set to be a pretty huge list (when isn’t it?), but the UK’s postal issues have delayed a couple of large overseas packages. I just hope they’re not lost… Anyway, there were plentiful additions to my 4K Ultra HD collection last month. Films I’d never seen included Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis and David Lynch’s Lost Highway (I imported Criterion’s release from the US via Amazon, and it took three goes to actually deliver me a copy that wasn’t damaged). On the rewatch pile, there were lavish editions of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (the PQ doesn’t seem that much better than the old Blu-ray, to be frank, but there was more in the box, and I wanted to support Masters of Cinema going 4K) and Casablanca (although I also decided to keep my equally-lavish old Blu-ray edition, so I probably should’ve just bought the cheaper regular 4K release. Oh well). In more standard packaging, but welcome nonetheless, were Mike Hodges’ Croupier, Walter Hill’s The Driver, and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. I’ve owned the latter so many times, I was loathe to buy it again; but then I saw the picture comparisons…

On regular ol’ Blu-ray, Sight & Sound’s new list inspired some prep for next year’s Blindspot (ooh, preview!) by picking up Criterion’s editions of Beau Travail and Close-Up (another import that Evri tried to destroy: a neighbour found my parcel halfway down the road in a hedge, soaked through from the stormy weather. I shit you not. Luckily, although the package was a mess, the contents were fine). Brand-new releases were limited to Phil Tippett’s stop-motion nightmare Mad God, but catalogue titles making their UK disc debut included a couple from Eureka — “girls with guns” classic Yes, Madam! and Bob Hope-starring comedy/horror double-bill The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers — plus a Kickstarter edition of 1926 horror The Magician.

Finally-finally, I actually bought a DVD — wonders will never cease (although it’s one of a couple I’ve picked up this year, so maybe not that exceptional). Spied in Network’s pre-Christmas sale, it’s The Edgar Wallace Anthology, a collection of noir-esque British B-movies from the 1960s. The set contains just a couple of films to get through — 54, to be exact. That should keep me busy for a while…

November’s Failures

Posted on December 2, 2022 by badblokebob

So, what’s the big cinema release of the month? Is it the latest instalment in the MCU, and the first direct sequel to that franchise’s only Best Picture nominee, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever? Or is it the limited theatrical release Netflix afforded to Knives Out sequel Glass Onion? Apparently it was such a roaring success during its one-week engagement, it left cinemas begging Netflix to extend its run and the box office commentariat noting Netflix’s obsession with avoiding/killing theatrical releases is seeing them leave millions (perhaps tens or even hundreds of millions) of dollars on the table. Funny days we live in.

There were a bunch of Netflix titles in cinemas this month, in fact, though none near enough to me to truly consider, so I’ll mention them when they actually arrive on the streamer. That said, if you’re outside the UK and Ireland, Matilda — or, to give it its full proper title, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical — will be a Netflix Original when it premieres there at Christmas. Here, it’s a StudioCanal release with regular theatrical distribution (and a Netflix debut next summer). It’s an adaptation of the highly-acclaimed Royal Shakespeare Company stage production, with songs by the wonderful Tim Minchin, which I’ve wanted to see since it opened (12 years ago) but have never found myself getting round to it. And now, frankly, I feel a bit weird going to see a children’s/family film in the cinema on my lonesome, so I guess I’ll be waiting for Netflix too. In the meantime, I’m just going to listen to Revolting Children on loop…

Also getting UK theatrical releases (of one scale or another) last month were Bill Nighy-starring Ikiru remake Living; fine dining thriller The Menu; festival favourite Aftersun; star-studded Armageddon Time; another attempt to reignite the “Jon Hamm is a leading man” spark in Confess, Fletch; real-life #MeToo retelling She Said; cannibal drama Bones and All; and under-promoted Disney animation Strange World. Plus a bunch of other titles I noted down but now can’t remember what they are, so I guess they’re not too significant.

Over on the streamers, Netflix tried to score blockbuster-style impact with the likes of Slumberland, an extravagant-looking (read: lots of CGI) family fantasy starring Jason Momoa and directed by Francis “Hunger Games” Lawrence. There was also the new work from Cartoon Saloon (last seen going Apple TV+ exclusive with WolfWalkers), the even-more-kid-focused My Father’s Dragon. And period drama The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh, provoked some chat for its “this is a film” opening shot/voiceover, if nothing else. And yet they were all topped by Falling for Christmas, a made-for-TV-level piece of festive churn starring Lindsay Lohan (yes, apparently she’s still working) and with no one else of note involved. Normally I wouldn’t mention shit like this, but it was Netflix’s #1 movie at one point (yes, really), plus I saw a review on Twitter that said it was so unremittingly terrible it made for a hilarious watch. I doubt I’ll actually test that assessment, though.

Apple TV+ went down a bigger-budgeted festive route, with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell starring in yet another remix of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, this time a musical one titled Spirited. I’ve not really heard any reactions to it, probably because it’s on Apple TV+. Sky Cinema’s HBO Max affiliation granted them A Christmas Story Christmas, but as the original Christmas Story never seemed to be as big a deal here as it apparently is in the US, I doubt anyone will care. No such jollity on Prime Video, whose main original offering was My Policeman, which I’d heard of primarily because it stars Harry Styles and Emma Corrin, and Amazon’s promotion did little to enlighten me further, going with just a photo of Styles in a policeman’s uniform as the poster and key art. It looks like a period drama. I doubt I’ll watch it. Of more interest is Good Night Oppy, a documentary about the Mars rover that was expected to last 90 days but went on exploring for 15 years. Feels like exactly the kind of thing I put on my watchlist and maybe get round to on a whim one day in four or five or six years’ time.

Meanwhile, MUBI’s biggest debut wasn’t really a film at all: following restored releases of Lars von Trier’s ’90s miniseries The Kingdom and The Kingdom II, they’re currently premiering weekly new episodes of the third and final season, The Kingdom Exodus. I’ve been interested in the series for a while (I own the original two runs in a Second Sight DVD box set that Amazon tells me came out in 2011), but finding time for 13 episodes of TV is always a challenge these days. In a similarly TV-ish position, the most noteworthy thing on Disney+ was The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. It falls into the same “one-off special” bracket as Werewolf by Night last month, although I think this one sounds more explicitly TV-like; but it apparently contains some Guardians continuity stuff that will likely feed into the third film. Lines, blurred, etc.

As always, dozens (maybe hundreds) of back catalogue (re)releases on all the streamers further bulked out my watchlists, or made me annoyed that I hadn’t yet watched the disc I bought (I’m looking at you, Another Round, which after a period on Sky has now shifted to Netflix, to doubly rub in that the Blu-ray still sits unseen on my shelf). Despite the prominence of other outfits, Sky Cinema do still seem to get the big-name titles first, this month adding the likes of Morbius, The Northman, The Outfit, and The Phantom of the Open. Your mileage may vary on how much those are “big-name titles”, but I didn’t note anything of comparable scale making its streaming debut anywhere else. However, making noteworthy comebacks were both How the Grinch Stole Christmas — the live-action one with Jim Carrey — on Netflix, and The Grinch — the CG animation with the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch — on Prime Video. Choices, choices. I could keep going with all the stuff that’s popped up on streamers — not just those already mentioned, but also the free TV-based ones like iPlayer, All 4, and now ITVX too (apparently ITV’s new streaming service is finally in HD. Or some of it, anyway. Hopefully that applies to the films, because they have an interesting selection), but, seriously, we’d be here forever.

So it’s on to my purchases, then, with a list that looks surprisingly short this month. Well, I’m waiting on a lot of stuff to be delivered — both preorders and stuff delayed by the postal issues we’re currently experiencing in the UK — so December might be a bumper month. That said, if I were listing individual titles we might be here a while, because surely the month’s headline release is Arrow’s Shawscope Volume Two, featuring 14 more movies (plus a couple of alternate cuts) from the Hong Kong studio best known (at least in the West) for its prolific martial arts output. Plus, Indicator started a new range of box sets — this time collecting Universal Noir — so that’s another six films on the watchlist. Other brand-new releases included Bullet Train (the trailer looked fun, even if reviews were weak, and the disc was heavily discounted shortly after release, so I took the punt), and a 4K double-bill of Top Gun (now the third copy in my collection, after a special edition DVD (kept for its extras) and the 3D Blu-ray) and Top Gun: Maverick). New editions of archive titles included Arrow’s 4K restoration of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and the BFI’s 4K-but-on-regular-Blu-ray release of The Draughtsman’s Contract.

Despite Black Friday and general end-of-year offers, my sale purchases were limited to a couple of BFI titles (noir comedy Beat the Devil, and Jean-Pierre Melville / Jean Cocteau collaboration Les enfants terribles), a couple from HMV’s Premium Collection range (vampires a la Tony Scott in The Hunger, and the 1944 American remake of Gaslight), and Masters of Cinema’s release of silent drama The Love of Jeanne Ney.

But after all that, likely to grace my player first is a niche documentary: Doctor Who Am I, coming to disc shortly after a brief theatrical run that also saw it mentioned in last month’s failures. But, unlike when I knew I’d never catch it on the big screen, I fully intend to actually watch it this time.

October’s Failures

Posted on November 2, 2022 by badblokebob

There can be only one release to kick off this month’s failures. Not because it was somehow the ‘most failed’ (it only came out yesterday, and — for various reasons — I didn’t get my copy until 10pm), but because it’s so long-awaited. Ever since StudioCanal started doing their lavish tat-filled 4K box sets a few years ago, I’ve been hoping they’d do one for Highlander (knowing that they owned the UK rights and had a 4K transfer ready, having released it on regular Blu-ray back in 2016), and it’s finally here. Hurrah! I haven’t actually watched Highlander since before Blu-rays were a thing (I bought a previous BD edition in 2009 and, shamefully, I’ve never watched it), so I’m looking forward to finally revisiting it.

Anyway, highlighting that has messed up the usual order of things, so let’s get back on track with what hit the big screen this month. Frankly, nothing that came particularly close to tempting me out the door. I guess The Banshees of Inisherin, maybe, as I love In Bruges, but I’m also happy to wait to watch it at home. Maybe I’d’ve been lured by documentary Doctor Who Am I if it had actually been playing near me. I’ve already preordered the Blu-ray that’s out later this month, mind. As for the ostensible blockbusters — your Black Adams and your Halloween Endses — I intend to watch them someday, but there’s so certainly no rush on my part. Same goes for most of this month’s other cinematic releases: Amsterdam, Barbarian, Bros, Decision to Leave, The Lost King, The Woman King… All stuff that will go on my watchlist when they come to a streamer I’m subscribed to, but I’m not sure there’s anything I’ll check out before that.

As for said streamers, Netflix score perhaps the most noteworthy release of the month with the new German adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front. Not “noteworthy” in the sense of generating column inches (I’ve barely seen it discussed), but in terms of quality, perhaps the winner (when I have seen it discussed, it’s with nought but praise). As if to balance the books, they also had lamentable YA adaptation The School for Good and Evil. Despite the disparity in critical reception, I bet it’s the latter that gets more viewers, sadly. Higher up my “to see” list than either is the new film from Henry “the actual director of Nightmare Before Christmas” Selick, Wendell & Wild. I don’t know anything at all about it, other than it’s stop-motion animated (natch) and was cowritten with Jordan Peele, but “the new film from the director of Coraline” is more than enough to convince me it’s a must-see. Also premiering this month was family-friendly Halloween-targeted The Curse of Bridge Hollow (I thought the trailer looked fun enough, but I imagine I’ll promptly forget it exists), some thriller starring Joel Egerton and Sean Harris called The Stranger (mmm, generic title), and Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain in The Good Nurse. Redmaybe and Chastain in something based on a true story? Sounds like it should be an awards contender or something, not limited to a passing reference buried at the end of my Netflix roundup, but I’ve barely seen it mentioned (I’ve only vaguely picked up on the “true story” thing too, so I might not even be right about that).

Also worth a mention on Netflix was Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, which I concluded is actually a TV series — an anthology of eight one-hour episodes — but there are some pretty big names starring in them, and some of the directors are familiar, too. In reliable “we still don’t really have proper rules about TV” fashion, Letterboxd have listed all the episodes individually, giving some credence to the idea of counting them as films… but Letterboxd also do that with Black Mirror, which similarly has name-y casts and directors (sometimes), but is definitely a TV series (aside from the odd special, arguably), so I’m not about to start counting either towards my 100 Films Challenge.

Talking of “TV that’s sort of a film”, Disney+ had the latest addition to the MCU, Werewolf by Night. It is, according to their branding, a “Special Presentation”. But in an era when Disney are happy to premiere big releases from their major studios (Pixar have suffered the brunt of this) on Disney+, what makes it “not a film”? Only its 50-something-minute runtime, I guess. It would’ve been a good one to watch in the lead up to Halloween (I mean, that’s why they released it when they did), but I didn’t make the time. And I haven’t decided if I should count it or not anyway (50 minutes is above the American Academy-derived 40-minute rule I use for differentiating features from shorts, but does that stop Werewolf by Night from being a ‘TV special’?) The only other brand-new thing on Disney+ I’ve noted this month is Rosaline, which has an intriguing premise (it’s about the girl Romeo loved before Juliet), but I’ve not encountered much discussion of it, which doesn’t bode well for it being worth paying attention.

Over on Amazon, they had the new film from writer/director Lena Dunham. Remember her? Lucky you if not. That nearly made me ignore Catherine Called Birdy entirely, but the trailer autoplayed at me and tickled me enough to put it on my watchlist. More likely to get me pressing ‘play’ is The Sound of 007, a documentary about (you guessed it) the music of the James Bond films. Considering how vital and influential the music of Bond is — both the scores and the title songs — it seems a worthy subject for such in-depth exploration. Its release was timed to coincide with the complete back catalogue of Bond films returning to Prime. Considering they own them now, when they’re available or not feels a bit like artificial scarcity. Anyway, they’re all in 4K, which is nice; but as I’ve had the “Bond 50” Blu-ray set for ten years and not finished getting through it yet, I doubt I’ll jump into Amazon’s offering. (Though Goldeneye has a notoriously weak transfer on Blu-ray, so subbing in the streaming 4K when I get there is tempting.)

Continuing in non-‘original’s territory, Amazon win the month with the streaming debut of “Nic Cage as Nic Cage (literally)” action-comedy The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. They’ve also now got X, the horror movie that only came out back in March and has already been sequelised (though apparently said sequel doesn’t have UK distribution, which perhaps doesn’t speak well of the first film’s success here). The best Netflix could manage in this field was… um… no, I got nothing. On the other hand, Sky Cinema (which, despite my attempts to wean off subscribing to so many streamers, I now have again thanks to a dirt-cheap offer) this past month premiered Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (I enjoyed the first more than I expected), The Lost City (strong Romancing the Stone vibes, in a good way), and Foo Fighters-starring horror Studio 666.

On to the final streamer I still pay for (unless I’m forgetting one, which is depressingly possible), and MUBI this month debuted Hit the Road, which I heard good things about when it played festivals last year so I’m looking forward to finally seeing, and The Wolf House, which I only know of because of its high ranking on Letterboxd animation lists, but I want to take this (thus far, rare) chance to see due to its high ranking on Letterboxd animation lists. (Now I’ve just gotta not forget those films are there and actually make time to watch them…) They also built up to Halloween with a whole season fo Dario Argento films — most of which I’ve not seen; all of which I own on disc, mostly thanks to Arrow. We’re talking The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, Phenomena, Tenebrae…

Of course, horror movies were popping up left, right and centre throughout October. The one I really should’ve watched is Rosemary’s Baby on All 4, because it’s something I really need to tick off a few Letterboxd lists. Plus because it’s meant to be a great film, obv. But it’s gone now, so that ain’t happening. Other horror streaming for free included, on All 4, Monster House, the remake of The Ring, and Saint Maud; and on BBC iPlayer, Ghost Stories, His House (formerly a Netflix Original, but apparently it was a BBC co-production and so always destined to jump services), lockdown favourite Host, the original Poltergeist; and piles more that I’ve either seen or own on disc. People really do go crazy for the ol’ horror films in October, huh? I always feel I should watch more, but I’m never organised enough.

Talking of free streamers, this month I discovered that the ITV Hub actually has a load of interesting films on it. For some reason I didn’t think their streaming service offered many films at all; and if they did… well, I have low intellectual expectations for the kinds of films ITV would show. Clearly I’ve misjudged them, because they have stuff like Belleville Rendez-Vous, Dogtooth, A Ghost Story, I’m Not There, My Left Foot, Son of Saul, Sophie’s Choice, and more (plus some of the kinds of things you might expect ITV to show, which is less interesting, but fair enough). The only downside is that they’re only available in SD, because ITV technology is dated like that. Maybe the forthcoming launch of ITV X will solve the problem… although as that’s a subscription service, I don’t know if they’ll bother to upgrade their free catchup.

Speaking of expensive things, here’s what I’ve been spending all of my money on this month — in addition to the aforementioned Highlander set, obvs. Normally I’d begin the list with brand-spanking-new releases, but I don’t think there were any this month. Top Gun: Maverick came out here yesterday, but I’m still a bit torn between getting it by itself or in the 4K double-pack with the first film, so I haven’t ordered it yet. As for new editions of older films, 88 Films delivered Hong Kong thriller Righting Wrongs with a choice of four cuts of the film, and Italian crime thriller Blood and Diamonds. Giving Highlander a run for its money in the “chunky box set for a single title” stakes was 101 Films’ Blu-ray reissue of Ghostwatch. Okay, that’s a TV programme, but as a one-off feature-length drama you could argue it’s a TV movie. I’ve still never seen it (another one where I’ve just missed the prime night of the year to watch. Oh dear). In a similar horror vein, I imported the new 4K edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It only adds Dolby Vision encoding (which I have switched off because I’m not convinced by how my TV handles it) and a couple of slight new extras, but I never picked up the previous 4K disc, so it was an easy choice. (I didn’t have to import it — it was released here as a Zavvi exclusive — but the import was cheaper.) And, still technically horror but moving ever further away from it, Eureka brought us the 1923 iteration of The Hunchback of Notre Dame starring Lon Chaney.

Sticking with the genre theme, I actually bought quite a few horror titles this month — not intentionally, but I guess it was an accident of what was on sale. So, from Network I picked up a few British classics (“classic” in the sense of “old” rather than “revered”), like The Dark Eyes of London starring Bela Lugosi, and The Ghoul starring Boris Karloff. From Arrow’s annual ‘Shocktober’ sale I snagged A Ghost Waits (which has a lovely textured slipcover, incidentally), and the two Giallo Essentials sets they’ve released in the UK (I may have to import the US-exclusive third one sometime just to complete the set). I also snagged a few horror titles from Indicator’s sale — or Hammer titles, anyway, which doesn’t necessarily mean horror. Those included the standard editions of The Full Treatment and The Snorkel, along with a spare empty Hammer Volume Two box, which is the set they were originally released in. I already owned the standard editions of the other two films from that set, so now I’ve got something that’s almost the same as having the real thing (I’m only missing the booklets and the bellyband). That means I now have all of Indicator’s Hammer sets bar the first, which I’ll never pick up because I won’t pay silly second-hand prices for it. That’s kind of a shame. Anyway. Also from Indicator: Fanatic (one of the films from that first Hammer set), early Mexican horror La Llorona, and experimental ’70s British horror Voices. Finally, as part of that US order with Dracula, I snagged George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park, Kino’s 4K of Invasion of the Body Snatchers ’78, and Shout’s 4K release of the original Candyman (I already owned Arrow’s regular Blu-ray box set, which is a nice set with good nice physical extras, but their 4K release just emulates it, whereas Shout’s adds a bunch of new on-disc extras. So, I’ll be keeping both). Plus, not strictly a horror title but it is relevant: the 4K edition of Batman: The Long Halloween. It cost literally twice as much as just buying the UK 1080p disc. Whether it’s worth it, I’m not sure.

Lest you think I deliberately went round hoovering up horror because it was Halloween, nearly all of those orders also included non-scary stuff. Like, from Network I also bought thrillers Defence of the Realm and The Quiller Memorandum, plus I finally gave in and upgraded The Story of Film: An Odyssey to Blu-ray. From Indicator, I grabbed spiritual drama Immaculate Conception and Western A Time for Dying. My US order was rounded out by Ex Machina in 4K (again, dodging an expensive Zavvi-exclusive UK version for a cheaper but feature-filled US release), noir double-bill The Guilty (which I’ve already watched, so it’s not a failure, so it’s not in bold) and High Tide, and a classic 3D triple(!) bill of Jivaro, Sangaree, and Those Redheads from Seattle. Even Arrow don’t just include horror in their sale, and from them I also picked up a couple of Japanese films: war drama Red Angel and classic movie homage To Sleep So as to Dream.

And, you know, that’s not even quite everything, but I think it’s more than enough.

September’s Failures

Posted on October 2, 2022 by badblokebob

Arguably my true failings his month were not watching any Blindspot or “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen” films, plus all the other 100 Films Challenge categories I’m behind on. But, as usual, this column will focus on all the new releases and purchases of interest that I didn’t see either.

The season for big-name blockbusters may have ended at cinemas, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t films worth mentioning — like George “Mad Max” Miller’s latest, Three Thousand Years of Longing; or a limited UK release for David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future; or Kevin Smith’s return to the milieu that made his name in Clerks III — and there were certainly films that generated blockbuster-sized numbers of column inches, like Don’t Worry Darling and its endless behind-the-scenes controversies. In and around those were the likes of starry whodunnit comedy See How They Run; George Clooney / Julia Roberts romcom Ticket to Paradise. Also, a bunch of horror and/or horror-adjacent movies that seem to have accidentally released a month early: Fall; Bodies Bodies Bodies; Smile… Plus, horrific in a different way, the belated debut of Michael Flatley’s Blackbird.

And yet, for all that, the biggest of them all was arguably a re-release: James Cameron’s Avatar returned to the big screen for its… fourth? fifth? (I forget, but it’s had a fair few re-releases at this point) go-round at box office glory. I don’t think it topped the chart, but it certainly kickstarted conversation about the film’s merits (or lack thereof) and enduring influence (or lack thereof). I haven’t seen it since it was first in cinemas almost 13 years ago, so I probably ought to revisit it before the sequel arrives in a couple of months. The only question is, which version? Even without finding a cinema showing, I can choose from the theatrical cut in 3D, or two different extended cuts…

And talking of social media chatter, the only thing with even more than Avatar was Netflix’s Marilyn Monroe kinda-biopic Blonde, which some people would have you believe you’re an evil degenerate for even considering watching it. I’m 50/50 on its director, Andrew Dominik (I adored The Assassination of Jesse James; Killing Them Softly bored me), and, to be honest, he’s given some spectacularly tin-eared interviews in promotion of his new work. I don’t morally object to it, I’m jus not sure I care enough to give it nearly three hours of my time. We’ll see.

Other Netflix premieres included Lou, which I only heard about due to the Netflix Twitter account sharing some behind-the-scenes footage of Allison Janney’s fight training. But that day it was #1 in their films category, so maybe I missed some other promo. I also didn’t see any official promo for Athena, but I did see a couple of critics saying it was very good (while expressing their disappointment about it going direct to streaming — it was worth seeing on the big screen, apparently. Oh well, we’ll never know). Meanwhile, seemingly the best Amazon could offer was another mistimed horror remake, Goodnight Mommy with Naomi Watts, and horror-comedy My Best Friend’s Exorcism, which I just happened to see advertised on their app last night, hardly a ringing endorsement. (I call all of these horror movies “mistimed”, but there are people who spend the entirety of October just watching horror movies, so it’s a boon for them.)

Disney+ were getting in on the act too, with the debut of Hocus Pocus 2. I’ve never had any interest in the original, so I doubt I’ll be watching this either. Earlier in the month, discussion focused around the Robert Zemeckis-helmed live-action remake of Pinocchio. Even the best reviews couldn’t drum up much enthusiasm for it, but it goes on my watchlist — alongside the various other Disney live-action remakes I still haven’t got round to (Lady and the Tramp, Beauty and the Beast, etc), so who knows when, if ever, I’ll actually watch it… As for new-to-streaming titles, I think Disney+ also had the most noteworthy of the month with the latest divisive MCU instalment, Thor: Love and Thunder. Also catching my eye were a variety of short films — something streamers could do a lot more with in general, I feel — including Hard Way: The Action Musical (sounds… interesting) and The Devil’s Harmony, which I actually watched back in 2020 when it was Short of the Week someplace online, but I never got round to reviewing it. It was quite good.

Actually, maybe beating that Thor flick was Amazon bringing Everything Everywhere All at Once to the UK (it did have something of a theatrical release here, but Amazon are pushing it as an “Exclusive” as if it didn’t), which I only didn’t note more prominently because I’d already imported the 4K disc (see July’s failures). Other streaming debuts or re-appearances filling out my various watchlists included, on Amazon, Cyrano (the new one with Peter Dinklage, directed by Joe Wright), Chopping Mall, and Selma; on Netflix, Kajillionaire and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre (which has already been removed again); on MUBI, Olivier Assayas’s Demonlover and Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers (do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Almodóvar film? Ought to correct that); on BBC iPlayer, Journey’s End, The Sisters Brothers, Stan & Ollie, and Blazing Saddles (which I’ve seen but owe a reconsideration); and on All 4, Bacurau, Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life, Monos, and True History of the Kelly Gang. I think some of these are available on other streamers already (especially when it comes to stuff on the TV-tied ones like iPlayer and All 4), but them getting added (or removed) does help remind me of their existence.

As ever, that’s just a few selected highlights — stuff comes and goes from these guys all the time, and I follow it all because I like to have an awareness of what’s available to me, but if I listed it all we’d be here forever (and these columns are long enough as it is). One streamer I haven’t mentioned is NOW, aka Sky Cinema, which I’ve just resubscribed to. I was supposed to be cutting down on streamers but I’ve ended up back on MUBI, Apple TV+, and now NOW! But they offered me two months (with their Boost add-on, which is essential because it’s how you get HD) for a total of £7 (vs £30 at regular rates), so I took it. I’m sure there’s a whole load of stuff on there I need to catch up on (I noticed they added Belfast at the beginning of the month), but I’ll look into that for next month.

Finally, as always, new additions to my disc collection. Almost all were brand-new releases this month, because the boutique labels just keep putting out interesting stuff, and there are more of those guys than ever — I remember when we basically just had Eureka/Masters of Cinema in the UK, and then Arrow came along, and now we’ve also got Criterion over here, and Indicator, and 88 Films and Second Sight have stepped up their games, and Radiance is on the way… Whew!

Anyhow, let’s begin with 4K. The highlight of the month there is surely Eureka’s first foray into the format, a box set of Jackie Chan’s Police Story Trilogy. I got my copy early, even, but unfortunately haven’t had a chance to watch any of it yet. 88 Films also made their 4K debut with Drive — not the Nicolas Winding Refn / Ryan Gosling cult fave (that came from Second Sight earlier in the year, you’ll remember), but the 1997 actioner. I remember the DVD cover; it was the kind of cheap-looking title I used to avoid that nowadays I kinda revel in. As for major label 4K titles, there was a nice box set for The Lost Boys (a film I’ve been meaning to revisit for years, and what better time?) and the regular release of Jurassic World Dominion (which I’ve not heard anything good about from anyone, but, hey, gotta complete the set).

No other brand-new films made their way into my collection this month, but plenty of other new releases from the boutiques did. To go label by label, from Arrow there was a pair of films with superb titles: Japanese epic crime drama A Fugitive from the Past and Indonesian action throwback Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash. Another title I love is All Deceased… Except the Dead (what does it even mean?), billed as a “mid ’70s Italian horror combining the aesthetics of Giallo with an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery” (sounds like my idea of a good time), which came from 88 Films, along with Yeun Biao thriller On the Run and Sherlock Holmes drama The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (which, I’m ashamed to say, I’ve never seen but am now buying for the third time. Anyone want the US Blu-ray? I think it might even still be sealed…) Indicator finally brought The Swimmer to the UK (if you don’t know, their releases are numbered, Criterion-style, and while some of their new titles are into the 300s now, this is #46, suggesting they’ve been working on it for a looong time). It’s missing the feature-length documentary from the US release, but I managed to, er, find a copy of that elsewhere. They also put out a two-film Robin Hood at Hammer set, which seemed worth a punt (I enjoy Hammer films; I enjoy Robin Hood films), and Madigan, which I confess I only bought to get the bundle discount (and because it sounded potentially up my street — believe it or not, I don’t buy just anything).

As for labels who only put out one title of interest this month (or where I mentioned the other title(s) already)… more martial arts action from Eureka in an Angela Mao double-bill of Hapkido (aka Lady Kung Fu) and Lady Whirlwind (aka Deep Thrust); Tom Hanks-starring ‘satanic panic’ Dungeons & Dragons-aping TV movie Mazes & Monsters, a worldwide HD premiere from Plumeria Pictures; Katsuhiro “Akira” Otomo-led anime anthology Memories from All the Anime; and 101 Film’s clone of Severin’s AGFA release Smut Without Smut, Volume 1, featuring two X-rated genre movies with the ~~good~~ naughty bits removed, to better allow you to focus on the genre stuff. They also include the uncut versions, ~~fortunately~~.

And that’s it for another month! I say “that’s it” as if I haven’t just listed about as many movies for one month as I’ve watched in the entire year to date…

August’s Failures

Posted on September 2, 2022 by badblokebob

In terms of what people are buzzing about — even ‘film people’ — I don’t know that it’s been that much of a movie-centric month. Of course, Jordan Peele’s latest, Nope, generated discussion, but that was a little while ago because the UK release was slightly later. Instead, I feel like movie folk were mostly nattering about the release of a novel: Michael Mann’s Heat 2. Not to mention all the cultural air being sucked up by two massive fantasy TV series: HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, which is two episodes in and has been met with acclaim from critics and viewers alike; and Amazon’s Lord of the Rings prequel, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which debuts its first two episodes today, but seems to have been getting strong notices. And that’s before we even mention Netflix’s The Sandman, which has managed a good few weeks of chatter before these behemoths turned up.

But anyway, let’s turn back to the big screen, because Peele’s flick wasn’t all that’s on offer — there was also Bullet Train, which I thought looked fun from the trailer but didn’t seem to garner great reviews; and horror… prequel? Sequel? Spin-off? I don’t know. I don’t care. Whatever, I’m talking about Orphan: First Kill. I shouldn’t really mention it, because I’ve not seen the first one, nor whatever it’s spun off from (I think it’s a spin-off? I might be confusing it with something else), and I have no intention of watching this one either, so it’s not really a “failure” in that sense. More worthy of mention, because I will watch them someday, are Idris Elba vs a lion in Beast, and cosy Britflick sequel Fisherman’s Friends: One and All. I’m sure that’ll be cheesy but heartwarming.

As for feature-length entertainments on the small screen, both Amazon and Netflix seem to have picked up the pace this month — and that’s without mentioning Hulu/Disney’s Prey (because I watched it) or Apple TV+’s big-budget-looking animation Luck. Guess it must be something to do with the end of the traditional summer season (what big-name theatrical releases there were seem to have tailed off too, as evidenced by the relatively-anaemic previous paragraph).

Amazon probably thought they were onto a winner with Thirteen Lives, a true-story flick about the Thai boys football team who got trapped in a cave, directed by the reliably solid Ron Howard and starring Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, and Joel Edgerton. Then they released it the same weekend as Prey and The Sandman, and I don’t think I saw a single person say anything about it. They also debuted a new Liam Neeson actioner, Memory, directed by Martin Campbell and co-starring the likes of Guy Pearce and Monica Bellucci. Are such names big enough to overcome the usual terribleness of “Liam Neeson actioner that’s gone direct to streaming”? Not according to the review scores. Similar can be said of Sly Stallone’s venture into the superhero genre, Samaritan. The best thing I heard about it was that it’s workmanlike, so hardly big praise. And yet, for some reason, it remains on my watchlist.

Indeed, it’s been a strong month for growing my Amazon watchlist: beyond their slate of originals, this month they became the streaming home for inventively-titled Channing Tatum dog movie Dog; Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, Licorice Pizza; Roland Emmerich’s latest ludicrous disaster… sorry, disaster movie, Moonfall; plus Bollywood actioner Shamshera, which I saw a clip of on Twitter the other week and looks awesomely insane. I probably ought to get round to RRR first, though…

Maybe it’s just be, but Netflix’s offerings feel thinner than all that. Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco in vampire action-comedy Day Shift? I guess it might be fun. Hugh Bonneville turning villain in I Came By? Honestly, the promo interview I read, which emphasised its timeliness with regards to real-world social shifts, just made it sound heavy going. Best of the bunch might be Carter, which I skimmed right past when I saw the title on my “new on Netflix” site, but then happened to see someone on Twitter explain that it’s from the director of The Villainess and the whole movie is one (fake-)single-take 139-minute action sequence. Well, that sounds awesome. So awesome that I haven’t made time for it yet. Well, it’s not special in that regard.

After making a big deal of cancelling a load of streaming services for that very reason, I’ve ended up keeping MUBI (they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, apparently) — so I should note that their offerings this month included animation The Illusionist and Zhang Yimou wuxia House of Flying Daggers — and realising my parents still had a Disney+ account that I could co-opt — perfect for watching Prey, and intending but not getting round to Lightyear, plus MCU series like She-Hulk.

As for the free streamers, I just feel the need to note that this month iPlayer offered the Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, and not for the first time. I’ve re-bought Apocalypse Now on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, and I’ve still only watched it once, many years ago, on the original Redux DVD I bought. And the Final Cut has been on TV four times already — yes, four TV screenings, plus all that attendant time available on iPlayer. I despair of myself.

But that doesn’t stop me, because — talking of purchases — here are some of this month’s. Let’s start with the latest additions to my Ultra HD collection, which included lavish new editions for Dog Soldiers from Second Sight and Get Carter from the BFI. Never seen either; now I have no excuse. There was a more standard release for Michael Mann’s Heat, which met with some points of controversy in Blu-ray fan circles, but the right people liked it so I convinced myself to pick it up. I also upgraded Spartacus on the cheap (another film I’ve now owned on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K but never seen), and realised there was a UK 4K release for The Green Knight, so picked that up too.

On regular ol’ Blu-ray, Masters of Cinema’s latest addition to their Buster Keaton catalogue — The Saphead — also led me to pick up a second-hand copy of their Buster Keaton: The Complete Shorts collection (second-hand because I wanted the 184-page book that the initial print run came with). They also put out a double-bill of Hong Kong action in Johnnie To’s Running Out of Time 1&2, while 88 Films had a triple-bill of similar in the Tiger Cage trilogy. I guess it was that kind of month, because I also randomly upgraded my old DVD of Shoot ’Em Up to the equally-as-old Blu-ray, and — speaking of The Villainess earlier — I finally bought The Villainess, too. And the random upgrades didn’t stop there: Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (completing my set of Batman: The Animated Series-related series and films in HD); TRON: Legacy in 3D in a dirt-cheap second-hand copy, alongside Piranha 3D. I have no particular hopes for that beyond the 3D making it hilarious. Fingers crossed.

And that’s not even everything, but I’m going to stop there because, dear God, I have to stop somewhere.

July’s Failures

Posted on August 2, 2022 by badblokebob

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June’s Failures

Posted on July 2, 2022 by badblokebob

The ‘big news’ this month that’s relevant here is I’ve finally decided to cancel most of my streaming subscriptions — namely: Sky Cinema, MUBI, Apple TV+, and Disney+. Yes, it’s crazy but it’s true: I’ve had all of them on the go at once, along with Netflix (though I share someone else’s account, so at least that’s free to me) and Amazon Prime (which has its own extra benefits, of course). My existing payments don’t run out on most of them until various dates in July, so they’ll still be a part of failures both this month and next. And that’s part of why the streamlining was necessary: there’s stuff I want to watch on all of these services, but I’m not getting around to enough of it to justify the cost. I might start bringing them back in, one at a time; but when there’s all of Netflix, Amazon, and my ever-growing Blu-ray collection to choose from, I hardly need them. And, frankly, for some of those services, I’ve paid for month after month without watching anything at all. Morally, I feel I’ve more than earnt the right to acquire anything already on my watchlist from (*ahem*) somewhere else, if or when I really want to see it.

Anyway, on to actual titles. The big film at the cinema this month was… Top Gun: Maverick again, really, as its phenomenal popularity led it to become the first billion-dollar-grossing film released in 2022. When it comes to Cinema, Tom Cruise doesn’t mess around. Trying to face up to it, the likes of Jurassic World: Dominion and Lightyear seemed to find it something of a struggle, apparently hampered by poor reviews. Maybe critics do still matter after all. Also filling out the multiplexes have been Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic, horror The Black Phone, and whatever exactly Alex Garland’s Men is. Also worth a mention, I hear, is Good Luck to You, Leo Grande for a first-rate performance from Emma Thompson, which isn’t likely to get much awards season buzz because the film is going direct to streaming in the US, rendering it ineligible for the Oscars. That said, with BAFTA increasingly going its own way, she’ll still stand a reasonable (perhaps even higher, now it’ll be the only opportunity to reward here) chance this side of the pond.

Talking of Alex Garland, I heard someone describe Spiderhead (Netflix’s biggest original of the month) as “Ex Machina but you can go make tea and not miss anything”, which is amusing but also means it’s still on my watchlist (I would never go make tea during a film without pausing, personally, but nonetheless, I get the point that’s being made). They also had a new Adam Sandler thing, Hustle, which I shouldn’t really mention because it’s going nowhere near my watchlist. I think I heard some people say it’s not too bad, but I’m not a Sandler fan and the plot is something to do with one of those sports only America really plays seriously, which makes it triply uninteresting (because sport would make it doubly so, and American-only sport even more so again). Meanwhile, their surprise hit of the month was apparently Interceptor, an action thing which received poor notices (19% on Rotten Tomatoes) but nonetheless hit #1 in many territories, sparking sequel discussion. It’s on my watchlist, but it’s hardly a priority.

The other streamers’s offerings were even less impressive, believe it or not. I mean, Amazon’s main original offering this month seemed to be Force of Nature, a Mel Gibson-starring (already a bad sign) cop drama (hardly popular right now) that was released elsewhere back in 2020. Oh dear. It doesn’t look good. Alternatively, there’s time-travel rom-com Press Play, which mixes things up by making it the woman who’s time-travelling for a change. Innovative. Doesn’t mean it’s any good though, with 56% on Rotten Tomatoes and low viewer ratings on the likes of IMDb. As for Sky Cinema, they had Gerard Butler vehicle Last Seen Alive, which my boss — who’s the kind of guy who likes Gerard Butler films — watched and said was awful. (I should probably stop bothering to mention all these films I’m never intending to actually watch…) The only thing that looked halfway decent was also a ‘Sky Original’, Dual, which I gather is some sort of clone-on-clone action thing starring Karen Gillan… but my Sky Cinema subscription has already expired, so I won’t be watching that anytime soon.

Also new to Sky this month (and therefore not actually getting watched) were reboot Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which I heard nothing good about, and Clifford the Big Red Dog, which I also heard nothing good about. Poor old Sky, they do seem to be struggling nowadays. Though they did have The Matrix Resurrections — which I’ve seen, and should have reviewed; and bought on disc, so should watch again — and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, which seemed to get divisive reviews, but is Edgar Wright, so I’ve blind bought it anyways. Noteworthy catalogue additions to the other streamers included, on Netflix, The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (I say “noteworthy” — I liked the first one enough that this sequel earns a spot on my watchlist, but it’s hardly a major title) and The Devil’s Men (a film made before the ’90s on Netflix? Why, wonders will never cease! Stops me forking out for the Indicator Blu-ray, too); and, on Amazon, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (a Best Picture nominee that I know isn’t meant to be very good, but, as well as being on my ‘to see’ list because of the Oscar nom, it was also on my 50 Unseen list for 2012, and I think this might be the first chance I’ve had to watch it for free in almost a decade).

And, if you’ve not seen Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, you can now stream it on Netflix… or Disney+… all All 4. For all the flack that film gets on Twitter, plus the facts that it’s been shown on TV and is currently on multiple services, I noticed that it had rocketed to #1 on Netflix the day after it was added. For all that certain cinephile hate it, I get the impression normies love it, or at least like it. So did I, so I ought to watch it again (I do own it on 4K disc, though).

Disney+’s biggest add this month was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, racing there so quickly from the cinema that it’s gained a rare two-months-in-a-row mention in my failures. Technically there are several Marvel things I should watch before I get to it, but as I’ve already jumbled up my viewing order, I might skip to it sooner rather than later. I’d quite like to see it in 3D, but as Marvel’s home-3D releases only happen in Japan nowadays, I think that would mean waiting until something like September. Maybe I should just hang back — it’s not as if people are still quiet about spoilers from it.

As ever, all of the streamers added tonnes of other stuff that I’ve bulked out my watchlists with, but if I started listing it all we’d really be here forever. I haven’t even discussed anything from iPlayer, MUBI, or Apple TV+, but little of it seems worthy of mention. MUBI’s sole brand-new addition, straight from a limited theatrical release, was Pleasure, which has been discussed in some circles for its unflinchingly graphic portrayal of the porn industry. Frankly, I’m not sure I care. And Apple TV+ had a different kind of festival darling, Cha Cha Real Smooth. I have no idea what it’s even about. I saw people logging it on Letterboxd when it played festivals, but I’ve heard it’s one of those kinds of films that people who go to film festivals enjoy while they’re there, but doesn’t merit much consideration outside of that context. Hardly praise to rush it up my list, that.

Last — but most certainly not least — all the discs I’ve been spending too much of my money on in the last month. The headliner this month has to be The Batman, one of those films I would say I’m really keen to see but have consistently failed to watch both at the cinema and on disc since it arrived a few weeks ago. It comes with two problems: it’s three hours long, so I’ve got to find the time (at the moment, I seem to be able to just about squeeze in a 70-minute noir of an evening, if I make a concerted effort); and my anticipation for it is so high, I can’t simply bung it on and hope for the best — I’ve got to be Prepared. So, goodness knows when I’ll get to it, but it’s right at the top of my “soon” list.

The only other brand-spanking-new release I picked up this month was Michael Bay’s Ambulance, which I feel like I’m more likely to get round to because, well, it’s Michael Bay — no need to engage brain there, right? But I’ve heard it’s one of his best films, hence why I’ve blind bought it immediately. For all the criticism he’s received down the years, when he’s on his game, Bay is one of the best pure action directors ever.

So, everything else I bought was either a new release of a catalogue title, or a slightly older release on offer. To stick with 4K, in the “new release” camp were The Untouchables and Wild Things, both blind buys but films that seem possibly up my alley. More of a known quantity was Drive, in a very lavish edition from Second Sight. I’m looking forward to revisiting it, because I put too much pressure on it to be an instant favourite first time I saw it. I didn’t dislike it, but I’m hoping I’ll like it even more on a rewatch. And, thanks to box set sales, I finally got round to picking up both the first Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection (the one with The Birds, Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo, the latter being the one I most need to revisit) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I shall refrain from ranting about the shitshow Warner Bros made of that release. Suffice to say, I’m not actually happy to have ‘had’ to buy the barebones films-only edition, but here we are.

Everything else cuts even deeper into moviedom’s back catalogue. Indeed, it’s mostly films I’ve never even heard of, frankly, but which are part of series or from labels that I trust. We’re talking stuff like Columbia Noir #5 and The Pemini Organisation from Indicator; Execution in Autumn and Outside the Law from Masters of Cinema; ’70s martial arts titles like The Killer Meteors (starring Jackie Chan and Jimmy Wang Yu), Monkey Kung Fu, Shaolin Mantis, and The Shaolin Plot; and both volumes of the BFI’s British horror short film anthology, Short Sharp Shocks. Finally, from a new StudioCanal line of cult movies, two Italian films directed by Enzo G. Castellari: High Crime (the original title translates as The Police Prosecute, The Law Acquits, which, as long Italian genre titles go, is a bit nothingy) and Spaghetti Western Kill Them All and Come Back Alone (which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is a superb title).

I’ll tell you something: for all being a physical media addict costs my bank account, you certainly don’t stumble across any of this kind of stuff on the streamers.

May’s Failures

Posted on June 2, 2022 by badblokebob

Ever since the pandemic, the cinema has been “back” multiple times. The latest film driving that claim is Top Gun: Maverick, the belated-in-every-sense sequel (it’s both 36 years since the original film and something like three years since this one wrapped shooting, its release delayed until well after Covid was ‘over’) that’s been garnering rave reviews from almost everyone. Obviously, I didn’t see it (it self evidently wouldn’t be topping my ‘failures’ column if I had), but maybe next month. I’m sure it rewards the big screen experience as much as everyone says.

That wasn’t the only biggie in cinemas this month though, with multiverses causing buzz aplenty between Marvel’s latest, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the UK bow of Everything Everywhere All at Once — another film we’re urged to see ASAP, and therefore on the big screen. Again, I didn’t have a chance this month, but maybe next. Other cinema releases look like small fry by comparison, even if they include a Stephen King adaptation (Firestarter) and Mark Wahlberg vehicle (Father Stu). Coming highly recommended, but limited (so far) to a single simultaneous global screening, was Andrew Dominik’s new Nick Cave documentary, This Much I Know to Be True. Hopefully it’s not one of those “you had to see it at the time” jobs and it’ll be on disc and/or streaming eventually.

Talking of streaming, the true headline-grabbers this month were new TV series, primarily Stranger Things 4 on Netflix and Obi-Wan Kenobi on Disney+. By comparison, original debuting films were thin on the ground. The only one I’ve got noted for Netflix is a new Ghost in the Shell animation, but it’s not a true new film because it’s one of those “cut down a season of TV into a feature” ones — full title Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 Sustainable War — which popped up a couple of weeks before a new season of the show itself. I’ve never got round to watching the original incarnation of SAC, never mind the less well regarded (as far as I’m aware) 2045-set revival. Amazon Prime, meanwhile, offered up a Chris Pine vehicle, The Contractor, and a Zac Efron one too, Gold. Neither seem particularly noteworthy.

As far as new-to-subscribers additions go, Netflix arguably had the biggest hitter with Bollywood crossover hit RRR — even if it wasn’t in the original language (exclusivity for that has been nabbed by another streamer) and, I read, not in the original aspect ratio. It’s enough to put you off watching it… were it not for the piles of praise I’ve seen it attract. Naturally, being a product of the Indian film industry, it’s really long, so I just need to find the time for it. The next most noteworthy title on my list is another international hit, two-time Oscar and two-time BAFTA nominee The Worst Person in the World, which is on MUBI. Once upon a time Sky Cinema were king of this category — the whole reason it exists, even — but this month the best they could do was Dear Evan Hansen. Oh dear. Meanwhile, Amazon added C’mon C’mon, which seemed to garner a lot of praise on Letterboxd at one point last year, but that didn’t materialise into much during award season. It didn’t even make my 50 Unseen list for last year in the end. Still, it goes on the watchlist now.

Indeed, my watchlists on all these services were padded out with piles of catalogue additions; so many it would be far too dull to list them all, especially as sometimes it’s just a film jumping from one service to another (looking at you, Ammonite and Chaos Walking). There also seemed to be a particularly large number of things I’ve been meaning to watch on disc but haven’t, which always elicits mixed feelings — a blend of “well why did I bother buying it then” and “I really should’ve watched that by now”. It was, in fact, All 4 that were worst for the latter this month, airing several titles I’ve owned on disc for ages, including The Handmaiden, The Kid Who Would Be King, and Zhang Yimou’s Shadow.

Talking of stuff I own on disc, let’s just move onto that, because I certainly bought more than enough stuff this month. No new-new releases (i.e. recent films new to disc) this month. I’m not sure if that’s because there’s been a dearth of them or because none have interested me. There have been plenty of new editions of catalogue titles, though, mainly foreign genre titles thanks to the boutique labels: martial arts movies like Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, Hero, and Human Lanterns from 88 Films; a pair of poliziotteschi from director Sergio Sollima, Violent City and Revolver (coincidentally released in the UK on the same date by two different labels. Maybe the rights just became available or something, because there certainly wasn’t any apparent cross-promotion effort); and a whole box set of neo-noir titles from Australia’s Imprint label, titled After Dark: Neo-Noir Cinema Collection One. “Collection One”? Promises, promises.

The latter I ordered as part of a bundle of all of Imprint’s releases this month, which also included Paul Greengrass’s superb drama about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday (it featured on my 100 Favourites list back in 2016); political thriller The Contender (never seen it, but it was more-or-less free by ordering the discounted bundle rather than just the other three titles, and I do like a political thriller); and Walter Hill’s The Warriors, a two-disc edition featuring the original theatrical cut on disc for, I believe, the first time. It’s the kind of release I’ve wanted for that film ever since I first saw it in 2018, so I was thrilled to get my hands on it. Just hope we don’t get someone like Arrow doing an even-more-bells-and-whistles version for the northern hemisphere anytime soon…

Talking of imports and genres, I picked up Arrow’s US-only releases of The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter and Come Drink with Me, which cost more than their UK counterparts but also boast considerably more special features. While I was getting those, I bulked up my order with a punt on the new 4K release of Heavy Metal, which comes bundled with its less-remembered sequel, Heavy Metal 2000; plus the latest classic 3D title to make it to disc, Treasure of the Four Crowns, a film I’d never heard of, but I’m always keen to support the continued release of genuine 3D content; and also a couple of films I had seen that don’t have Blu-ray releases on this side of the pond, steampunk animation April and the Extraordinary World and Clint Eastwood’s true-crime Southern Gothic Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

And that’s not even all! There were more poliziotteschi in Free Hand for a Tough Cop (great title) and Silent Action (aka The Police Accuse: The Secret Service Kill, which sounds much cooler); a couple of things I heard recommended so picked up half on a whim, like single-take sci-fi Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and Woman at War; and a bunch of stuff that’s been lurking on my “consider buying” list for months/years and finally was on offer, like Irezumi, Over the Edge, A Silent Voice, The Spy in Black, and The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (talking of cool titles…)

Finally for this month, the greatest frustration of all disc collecting: two re-releases of titles I already owned and hadn’t intended to re-buy but ended up caving on. First, Arrow’s 4K edition of Dario Argento’s Deep Red. I’ve largely been ignoring their 4K Argento reissues because I already bought them all on Blu-ray and, frankly, haven’t watched any of them, and the ‘only’ thing the new editions add is the 4K transfer (which isn’t always that much of an upgrade — I haven’t bothered with their 4K of Donnie Darko for that very reason). But I discovered this month that Deep Red actually added a host of bonus features, plus packaging more in line with their other Argento titles; and the screen caps do make the quality of the transfer look noticeably better, so I caved. Secondly, Eureka’s Blu-ray edition of Vampyr. I seem to remember when they released it on DVD (back in 2008) they decided the print quality wasn’t up to HD standard (although they released their first Blu-rays in 2009, so maybe I’m misremembering), but it’s since been restored; plus they’ve added new special features and a big ol’ booklet. It’s a film I had mixed/muted feelings about when I finally watched it last year, which was part of my reluctance to upgrade, but then I guess I got FOMO about a limited-edition pretty Masters of Cinema release. But hey, the film merits a revisit, and this will encourage me to do so… some day…

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