Welcome to my monthly “Failures” column, where I look back at some of the films I could, would, maybe even should have watched last month… but failed to.
It may not be summer anymore, but there were still plenty of blockbuster-sized releases at the multiplex. The biggest of them seems to be Disney’s latest animation, Zootropolis 2 (aka Zootopia 2), which has apparently broken records of some kind (I confess, I didn’t read the articles, just saw the headlines). I liked the first a lot (9½ years ago! Time flies), so I look forward to catching the sequel at some point. Other sequels included a third Predator flick (and second this year) from director Dan Trachtenberg, Predator: Badlands, which seemed to be as well-received as his previous two; belated magic/heist threequel Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, finally using the subtitle everyone said should’ve been on the second film; Nazi-killing followup Sisu: Road to Revenge; musical second act Wicked: For Good; and a limited release for the third Benoit Blanc murder mystery, Wake Up Dead Man, ahead of its Netflix release at the end of next week.
Not technically a sequel, but still very much in the IP space thanks to being both an adaptation of a Stephen King story and a remake of the previous Arnie-starring adaptation, was Edgar Wright’s latest, The Running Man. Other films with noteworthy pedigrees included Sky Original Nuremberg starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek, among others, which received a rare wide release for a streamer-branded film; Richard Linklater’s latest (finished) film, Blue Moon; Sydney Sweeney-starring boxing biopic Christy; the debut feature directed by Ronan Day-Lewis, starring his dad, Anemone; and a whole host of recognisable British faces in The Choral, the fourth film from the writer/director pairing of Alan Bennett / Nicholas Hytner.
For those not keen in venturing out in these colder days, the streamers offered up a batch of brand-new titles as well, although their perceptible quality is as variable as ever. I mean, for every well-reviewed film like Netflix’s Train Dreams, there’s a pile of churn like Prime Video’s action-comedies Bride Hard (probably the worst wannabe-pun title I’ve ever heard) and Playdate, a vehicle for the star of their Jack Reacher show, Alan Ritchson. Apple TV+’s The Family Plan 2 appears to be in a similar vein. At least Netflix’s other original offering, Jingle Bell Heist, has the good grace to be festive-themed.
Plenty of new-to-streaming stuff here and there, too. The one that intrigues me the most, in its way, is After the Hunt. I didn’t see any fanfare for this when it was in cinemas, nor when it came to Prime in the middle of the month, despite a starry cast and being directed by Luca Guadagnino. Is that because it’s bad, or just not discourse-provoking? No idea. Could be it’s just me, because when I did spot it on Prime it was apparently in their top ten films, so someone noticed it. Also on Prime: actioner Boy Kills World and “dark fantasy comedy horror” (Wikipedia’s sting of genres, not mine) Death of a Unicorn. Over on NOW, a reminder that I bought but haven’t watched Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, plus the latest from Christopher “Happy Death Day” Langdon, Drop, and video game horror adaptation Until Dawn. The most I noted from Netflix was Trump biopic The Apprentice, but Disney+ actually had a couple of things worth mentioning in the shape of The Fantastic Four: First Steps (though I’m so many Marvel films behind I can’t remember the number anymore, so I don’t know how soon I’m likely to watch it) and Freakier Friday (though it’s decades since I saw its predecessor, and I wasn’t clamouring for a followup).
As ever, tonnes of back catalogue additions and service-hoppers made my long-list of stuff to mention, but a couple seemed worthy of particular note: The Perks of Being a Wallflower on Netflix, purely because it’s one of the most popular films on Letterboxd that I’ve never seen, but it also never seems to be streaming anywhere (and I hardly care about it enough to watch it any other way — in fact, I might not even get round to it now, who knows); and Fellini’s La Strada on Prime, which has a slightly more prestigious Letterboxd pedigree of being on the Top 250 there, but is another one that isn’t regularly readily available.
But, as usual, the most egregious older titles were all the reminders of stuff I own on disc but haven’t watched — like Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, the reboot of Candyman, Tarsem Singh’s The Fall, Neil Armstrong biopic First Man (all Amazon, though Candyman was also on iPlayer) — or titles I’ve bought because I thought they were great and want to rewatch them, but again haven’t — like Oliver Stone’s JFK and Natural Born Killers, John Frankenheimer’s Ronin, David Cronenberg’s Scanners (also all Amazon. Their offering is rather underrated, you know, and I think it’s their own fault because they make it harder to use than Netflix, burying the good stuff under piles of random crap. Though it’s also partly user error, as so many people can’t seem to get their head around the fact you can rent films in addition to those you get as a subscriber).
Nonetheless, I keep buying stuff that’s destined to end up on future iterations of that list. This month, it was Arrow’s 4K re-release of Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (upgrading my existing Blu-ray copy of that same version), Criterion’s 4K re-release of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (also upgrading my Blu-ray copy of the same), the 4K release of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride (a leap up from the old DVD, at least), and The Goonies, a purchase prompted by, of all things, the tie-in LEGO set (which I did not buy because, although it looks cool, it’s expensive and I don’t love the film that much).
Of course, I also shelled out for piles (literally) of things I’ve never seen. Chief among them was Arrow’s release of City on Fire, signalling the start of their deal to release Golden Princess films in the UK, which in the future will bring us solid-gold classics like The Killer, Hard Boiled, and… well, potentially 153 more, according to news of the original deal (Shout have the US rights and Arrow’s is a sublicense). Maybe we’ll see some box sets like their Shawscope series, which this month added a Volume 4 with 16 new films to supplement the 40 already released across the first three sets.
As usual, most of my purchases this month came courtesy of boutique labels, whether they be new releases or sale pickups. From Eureka, two additions to the Masters of Cinema series: Michaelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte in 4K, and Kinji “Battle Royale” Fukasaku Shogun’s Samurai. From Deaf Crocodile (via an eBay seller, as the label won’t ship to the UK), the second volume of Treasures of Soviet Animation and “a wildly surreal early 1970s Lithuanian rock opera” that’s further described as a blend of Jesus Christ Superstar, Fiddler on the Roof, and The Wicker Man (how could you resist that?!), The Devil’s Bride. From Criterion’s UK sale, noir Night Moves in 4K and Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth on regular BD; and from Indicator’s sale, 4Ks of Ozploitation flicks Harlequin and Thirst, plus Love Affair-emulating melodrama When Tomorrow Comes and “British crime classic” (their words) The Shop at Sly Corner. Singleton purchases included a 4K upgrade for Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung’s Heart of Dragon, and the latest in Hammer’s line of collector’s editions, The Men of Sherwood Forest.
And that’s not even including all my recent Black Friday orders that haven’t arrived yet. They say the first step to solving a problem is recognising their is one… so I fully intend to carry on in self-denial for a while yet.
Favourite Film of the Month
100Films.co.uk 