I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you… this month’s films.

#67 Godzilla Minus One (2023) — Wildcard #3
#68 Incendies (2010) — WDYMYHS #8
#69 Desperado (1995) — Failure #9
#70 The Fall Guy (2024) — New Film #9
#71 Frozen II 3D (2019) — Wildcard #4
#72 The Batman (2022) — Wildcard #5
#73 Golem (1980) — Wildcard #6
#74 Cutthroat Island (1995) — Rewatch #9
#75 Rio Bravo (1959) — Blindspot #8

• I watched 10 feature films I’d never seen before in September.
• Eight of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
• Four of those qualified as Wildcards. That’s… fine. I mean, I should’ve been watching Blindspot and WDYMYHS films instead, really, but at least I was watching something. I always intend to leave the Wildcards as late in the year as possible, because they’re considerably easier to cross off than some other categories; but I’m also not going to watch a film that could qualify and not count it just so the slot is left open to be filled later — that’s a different kind of madness.
• I left it so long to watch Godzilla Minus One that I didn’t think it was going to qualify for my Challenge. Let’s walk through the categories. My “New Films” go by UK release date, but G-1 is a seemingly-rare example of a film that is foreign language and an Oscar nominee, but was actually released in the UK in its original year of release. It was on my WDYMYHS list when I published that in January, but has since dropped off the IMDb Top 250 so no longer counts. It was in both May and June’s “Failures” after being surprise dropped on Netflix on June 1st, but I wasn’t subscribed at the time (I’m, uh, still not) so I missed that. It also featured in August’s Failures, but technically that was the black-and-white version so it would sorta be cheating. I could have waited until the UK disc release delivered it onto the Failures for a fourth time, but I have a suspicion that won’t be out until December. There is a theatrical re-release coming in the interim, but that only works for qualification if it (a) screens for more than one night (I don’t think it actually did last time, at least not near me), and (b) it’s released one month and is still screening the next (to qualify as a “failure”, again). But, for all that, it does perennially qualify thanks to being on my 2023 “50 Unseen” list… but I used up all the slots in that category already… but that’s what Wildcards are for! Hurrah! (And whew!)
• For some reason I thought I had one Series Progression slot left to go, and Frozen II was going to fill that slot. It wasn’t a fault in my record keeping, just in my memory. So, as a wildcard, Frozen II could’ve counted as either Series Progression (that series being the Disney Animated Canon) or 50 Unseen (it was on 2019’s list). I went with the former because, as I said, that’s what I thought I was doing; and also because I’ve already has a 50 Unseen wildcard, so let’s keep it mixed up.
• I’d been trying to keep the Batman films on my List of Reviews page in some semblance of series order, though that was always made harder by the animated films taking place in various different chronologies, not to mention two-thirds of the Dark Knight trilogy not even beginning with the word “Batman”. Now, after The Batman, I’ve just given in and put it in full-on alphabetical order. That also doesn’t feel quite right (the four Burton+ live-action films are now scattered and out of sequence), but nothing’s perfect (except arguably strict chronological across all the films… but even that throws up oddities, like interrupting the aforementioned live-action run with 1993’s Mask of the Phantasm).
• This month’s Blindspot film was Howard Hawks and John Wayne’s response to High Noon, Rio Bravo. It’s a good film, though (even setting aside political leanings) I thought High Noon was better.
• No WDYMYHS film this month, meaning I’m two behind on both the Blindspot categories. That’s intentional for Blindspot itself (I’ve got two horror films on the list, so I intend to watch both of those in October), but WDYMYHS now just needs to be caught up on.
• From last month’s “failures” I watched Desperado, The Fall Guy, and Golem.

Favourite Film of the Month
Quite a few films I enjoyed this month, even though a couple fell a little short of my high hopes for them (said hopes were probably too high, but what can you do?) One that absolutely lived up to its billing was Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies — one of those films that’s truly gruelling, but also truly exceptional.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
One of the things about liking 3D is that I’ll watch almost anything in 3D, which is how I came to watch “nudie cutie” Adam and 6 Eves. It’s a 60-minute film that exists to primarily show off topless women, with some pun-laden narration because, I dunno, I guess someone thought if they made it funny it would somehow stop it being crass? It didn’t work; it just made it worse.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Hey, would you look at that: I posted some actual film reviews! And one of them came out on top, too, with The Swordsman of All Swordsmen being my most-viewed post of the month. That said, it was only slightly ahead of the August monthly review; and the other new review post (Hepworth shorts) was way down the list. But if I was doing all this just for hits, I’d’ve given up a long time ago.

Cecil M. Hepworth shorts	The Swordsman of All Swordsmen

For some people, October is all about the horror movies. I always feel like I’ll go all-in on that too one year, but every time it rolls around I haven’t even considered that “one year” being this year. I do have a couple of seasonally-appropriate flicks I’ve been holding back for the occasion, though, so in 31 days we’ll see just how horrific my month gets.