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.

I’ve heard good things about a couple of last month’s theatrical releases: Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest, One Battle After Another, which seems to be being hailed as a film of all-time-level greatness; and Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk, which maybe can’t equal that level of rapturousness, but I’ve nonetheless heard is good. I’ve heard not a word said about Downton Abbey finale Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, which I guess means it hasn’t offended anyone, but also isn’t the cultural behemoth it was back when it was on TV, or even when the first movie landed. The same could perhaps be said for the belated theatrical release of Hamilton, massively undercut as it was by being on Disney+ for over five years now. It would be nice if a disc release were to follow. Talking of belated, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues arrived just 41 years after its predecessor, and seems to have gone down about as well as you’d predict — i.e. not very.

Also filling screens with various levels of noteworthiness this month were the latest from 50% of the Coen brothers, Honey Don’t!; the fourth (I think?) and final Conjuring, The Conjuring: Last Rites; and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, which I don’t really know anything about except it has a starry-ish cast (Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and therefore probably merits a mention on some level.

Of more note, going direct to streaming (or maybe it had a theatrical release, I don’t know; I certainly didn’t register one) was Spike Lee’s latest, a modern-day remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, Highest 2 Lowest, which is on Apple TV+ and so I really should watch it to justify the fact I keep forgetting to cancel my subscription (that and the new season of Slow Horses that’s currently airing… if “airing” is the right word for a direct-to-streaming series). The only other streaming original I noted this month was Liam Neeson action sequel Ice Road: Vengeance on Amazon Prime Video, the most noteworthy aspect of which was that I guess Ice Road was successful enough to warrant a sequel. Remember Ice Road? Me neither.

As for films making their subscription streaming premieres, Sky Cinema almost have a monopoly this month, with a varied selection that encompassed one time Oscar frontrunner The Brutalist, horror reimagining Wolf Man, well-reviewed action-comedy Novocaine, and poorly-reviewed action-comedy Love Hurts. Also Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu, but I bought that on disc a while back so it’s a different kind of failure on my part. In a less R-rated bracket, Disney+ offered up the live-action Lilo & Stitch. I tend more towards the “but why?” side of the debate on these live-action do-overs, and I didn’t much care for the original Lilo & Stitch anyway, so this one is a long, long way down my watchlist.

Some films reminded me they exist by flipping services, like popular romcom Anyone But You jumping from Sky Cinema to Netflix, or the Prime Original remake of Road House rocking up on iPlayer via a terrestrial TV screening. Back catalogue additions in general are just reminders of stuff I haven’t quite got round to, like Bones and All and Tár, both also on iPlayer; or Minari and Megalopolis on MUBI (ooh, alliterative). Heck, I’d include Selma on that list, and that premiered almost eleven years ago. A whole decade plus one year! Where does time go?!

In a similar vein, there were plenty of reminders of discs I’ve bought and not watched, the worst-feeling (at least for me) being stuff I’ve been meaning to revisit for ages, gleefully upgraded to 4K, and then still not got round to. There’s a double helping of Francis Ford Coppola in that bracket across The Godfather trilogy and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, while other titles alongside them include RoboCop, RoboCop 2, Schindler’s List, Training Day, and The Usual Suspects.

Nonetheless, I still fork over the cash for brand-new 4K upgrades; though I do feel I’ve slightly reined myself in recently. Maybe not compared to regular folks, but compared to past-me. That said, there are still titles I jump on eagerly at order time but don’t when they actually drop through the door… although, in fairness, that’s because placing an order takes mere minutes while carving out time for multiple hours isn’t what it used to be. Anyway, getting Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World into the 4K club was most welcome — I owned the old Blu-ray, but that was a slightly begrudging purchase because it wasn’t meant to be very good, I just figured it would never get an upgrade. Apparently the 4K disc is splendid. Well, my Challenge has four rewatch slots still to go this year, and that’s high on my list of films I intend to fill them.

Other UHD purchases included John Wick sidequel Ballerina, a pair of old Hammer non-horrors, Blood Orange and The Man in Black, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy, and an upgrade for martial arts minor classic Come Drink with Me. As for regular Blu-rays, it’s mostly boutique stuff that, for one (understandable) reason or another, doesn’t merit a 4K disc, like the latest silent-era addition to the Masters of Cinema line, Finis Terrae, or Radiance’s fourth volume of world noir, World Noir Vol. 4.

Finally, a trio of box sets added a total of 18 films to my watch list; more if you count alternate versions. Two of those were from Anderson Entertainment, whose Super Space Theatre volumes collect the compilation films produced from episodes of Gerry Anderson TV shows; three Thunderbirds films in Volume One, and six Space: 1999 films in Volume Two, including one newly-created for this set, as well as Spazio: 1999, which was how Italian audiences first encountered the series, with a score by Ennio Morricone, no less. The remainder came from a belated pickup of Arrow’s V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal set, collecting nine features from Japanese studio Toei’s ’80s/’90s line of direct-to-video genre flicks. How “essential” is such a collection? I dunno, but it does sound kinda fun. Maybe some day I’ll actually get round to watching them and find out if they indeed are.