The Mission: Accomplished Monthly Review of December 2024

Posted on January 1, 2025 by badblokebob

In my introduction to the 2024 edition of my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, I wondered if it would be “third time lucky” — having failed to complete the Challenge in 2022 and 2023, could I manage it in 2024? And the answer is: yes. Hurrah! Although it’s not really “luck”, but a mixture of dedication (sticking at it all year), tweaking (making changes year-on-year to keep the task challenging but make it achievable), and working out the best way to approach it (learning what didn’t work on my first two goes so I could avoid those mistakes).

I’ve felt a greater sense of achievement in completing the Challenge this year than I have for years. Partly that’s because I failed the last two years, so no achievement-feeling there; but also, the previous version of the Challenge had become de rigueur. Some years I completed it as early as May (four times out of fifteen, to be precise, so almost a third of the times I did it). Even if I didn’t manage that, completing it hadn’t been a problem since 2012 (which was the last time I failed — every success since then happened no later than November). It had become a sprint to the finish line, which wasn’t really what I wanted it to be — it was supposed to be a challenge, and it was supposed to take all year. That’s more or less why I decided to mix it up, and the fact I failed the new-style Challenge on my first two attempts shows I’d succeeded in making it trickier for myself. So, to manage it on my third go… I think it’s justified to feel a sense of achievement. Sure, it’s still only “watching films” — arguably one of the easiest, most passive hobbies you can have — but it’s something.

Anyway, there’ll be more reflection on the Challenge in its entirety in the days to come, when I trot out my usual array of year-end retrospectives. For now, let’s zoom in on the final stretch…

This month’s viewing towards my yearly challenge

#94 Look Back (2024) — Failure #12
#95 Hotel Rwanda (2004) — WDYMYHS #10
#96 The Holdovers (2023) — New Film #12
#97 To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) — WDYMYHS #11
#98 Le Trou (1960) — Blindspot #12
#99 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) — WDYMYHS #12
#100 Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) — Rewatch #12

I watched 14 feature films I’d never seen before in December.
That means I’ve achieved at least 10 first-watches in every month of 2024 — the first whole calendar year I’ve managed that since 2020!
And 14 equals April for the most first-watches in a single month of 2024.
I haven’t been mentioning those kinds of stats much this year, because most months have been unremarkable. December’s done alright, though: it’s beaten the rolling average of the last 12 months (10.9); beaten the average for 2024 to date (previously 10.6, now 10.9 too, natch); and beaten the average for all Decembers (previously 11.6, now 11.8).
Back to my 100 Films in a Year Challenge: six of those first-watches counted towards my Challenge, along with one rewatch.
Normally I’d count the first 2024 film of a month as the New Film, because it’s a ‘higher’ category; and normally I’d be only too happy to keep the Failures slot open a little longer, because there’s always so many of them. But there are so many 2024 releases I’ve missed, it felt more productive to try to force myself to watch another one of them rather than another Failure.
This is the first time I’ve completed Blindspot in this new era — I was one shy in 2022 and three short in 2023. (I didn’t complete WDYMYHS in 2022 either, but did in 2023.)
I watched all six Wallace & Gromit films this month, but only one of them counted towards my Challenge. It was nearly none at all, but I didn’t get in the other rewatch I had planned, so Curse of the Were-Rabbit snagged that space. Shorts don’t currently count anyway (maybe one day), but Vengeance Most Fowl could’ve been here as a New Film, if there’d been any slots left.
This month’s concluding Blindspot film was French prison break thriller Le Trou.
This month’s WDYMYHS films represented a whole quarter of the list. They were genocide drama Hotel Rwanda, racism drama To Kill a Mockingbird, and superhero adventure Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Bit of a change of tone at the end there.
From last month’s “failures” I watched The Holdovers and Look Back.

The 115th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
As I get started on my yearly review posts, I’m endeavouring to give everything a final score (for the stats) and starting to think about my top ten list. There are a few films this month that are in contention for the latter, and I’m still considering giving 5s for the former. One that feels like a lock for the list but maybe not for a 5 (because I enjoyed it a heck of a lot, but is it a 5-star film? Not sure yet) was The Good, the Bad, the Weird — recently released on 4K by Arrow, but I watched my old Blu-ray copy to decide if I wanted to buy that new version. Suffice to say, I did.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
I’m beginning to suspect 2024’s average score might be a strong one (but, hey, you never know) because this was another month with no truly bad films (a sentence I feel I’ve written a lot this year). That said, Hotel Rwanda struck me as a somewhat old-fashioned movie-ised treatment of a very real tragedy, which is a less than ideal reaction to something that should really be powerful.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Wordpress seem to have revised their stats presentation, making this harder to work out (they no longer highlight it for me — I have to look up every post one by one), which is a shame and makes me disinclined to continue this next year. But, for now, I can say the most-viewed post during December was the November monthly review — the fifth time the previous month’s review has won this award in 2024. It only beat the Failures by one hit, though.(For what its worth: of the other seven winners, it was the previous month’s failures twice, and a film review the other five times.)

Every review posted this month, including new titles and the Archive 5

The Cranes Are Flying

It’s 2025 — a quarter of the way through the century! Jesus. Everything just conspires to make you feel old nowadays, doesn’t it?

As ever, before I get into the swing of the new year, I’ll be spending a good few posts looking back at the old one. After another mostly-quiet year here on 100 Films, it’s going to be a busy week (give or take).

100 Films @ 10: Short Films

Posted on February 27, 2017 by badblokebob

For the final in my series of ten top tens (yes, we’ve reached the end already / finally (delete as appropriate)), I’ve decided to take a look at one of the less-discussed aspects of the film world: shorts.

In the past ten years I’ve watched and reviewed just 51 short films, but as I’ve never ranked them before it seemed overdue that I create some kind of quality-sorted list. Here, then, are my ten favourite short films that I watched in the last decade.

10
Pixels

Don’t worry, there’s no Adam Sandler in sight — this Pixels is the three-minute short that went down so well online someone bought the rights and turned it into a feature. A fun idea, it works better as a narrative-less couple of minutes than it did forced into the shape of a blockbuster.

9
Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter

Easily the best of Marvel’s now-defunct series of short films, Agent Carter was so good — exciting, characterful, funny — that it was later expanded into a two-season TV series (which I still haven’t watched. Oops.)

8
Telling Lies

A simple idea, very well executed: as we listen to a series of phone conversations, the speakers’ dialogue appears on screen… except instead of transcribing their exact words, it reveals their true thoughts. At only a few minutes long Telling Lies doesn’t outstay its welcome, instead maintaining the basic idea well and crafting a neat and amusing little story with it.

7
Toy Story of Terror!

Having managed to beat the odds and create three great Toy Story movies, Pixar seemed foolish trying to extend it further as a franchise. Toy Story of Terror justifies that decision, however, with a story, style, and message that would’ve been strong enough to be a whole feature (with some expansions, of course) but plays equally well in just 20 minutes.

6
Wallace and Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death

As with #7, this was a seasonal special for old animated favourites that would’ve worked just as well (perhaps even better) expanded out to a full feature. A Matter of Loaf and Death is the first Wallace & Gromit film since the very first not to win an Oscar, but it’s every bit as good as its forebears — I can’t think of much higher praise than that.

5
Presto

The Pixar short that accompanied WALL-E, Presto is a perfectly-executed piece of near-silent slapstick tomfoolery. Surprisingly, this also lost out on an Oscar. Its director went on to co-direct last year’s Storks, which… didn’t go down so well.

4
The Lunch Date

Winner of the short Palme d’Or and an Oscar, The Lunch Date is a clever little tale with a well-disguised twist. I imagine if it was made today people would talk about its social relevance, which is a little depressing nearly 30 years on, but there you go. The first work by director Adam Davidson, he’s since gone on to helm episodes of shows like Six Feet Under, Lost, Deadwood, Dexter, Rome, True Blood, Fringe, Fear the Walking Dead, and many, many more.

3
The Present

As with most of the best shorts, The Present presents a simple but effective idea quickly and with a strong emotional hit. A cute tale of a boy and his dog, it also has a message about positivity and overcoming adversity. No Oscar here, but its director has since worked for Disney on Zootropolis and Moana, as well as on The Secret Life of Pets and Revolting Rhymes.

2
Feast

Another lovely short, also told economically and without dialogue, about a friendly little dog who helps out his owner. Yeah, I’m a sucker for cute dogs. But Oscar-winner Feast is also beautifully animated: nicely stylised and executed as essentially one long montage, proving again that exceptional filmmaking can create an emotional experience in the briefest of times.

1
Commentary! The Musical

Unlike the previous films on this list, it’s the very opposite of silent — it is, in many ways, all about sound. There’s also no big emotional hit and no sniff of awards recognition either. So why does Commentary! The Musical top my list? Because it so impressively made. It’s the commentary track on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, but rather than just the production team chatting about how they made the show, it’s sung through. And it’s not just a collection of new songs played over the original production — it’s frequently scene specific, sometimes even shot specific. It’s an incredible feat of writing and planning; not only that, but it’s hilariously funny too.

Tomorrow: birthday day.

Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)

Posted on December 11, 2015 by badblokebob

Shaun the Sheep started life in the 1995 Wallace & Gromit short A Close Shave. Eventually granted his own TV spin-off aimed at little kids, it’s become a global hit thanks to the decision to make it a silent comedy — no need to pay for pesky dubbing into other languages, while its sheer quality (it is Aardman, after all) helps it to transcend national boundaries. This year, Shaun and friends made the leap to the big screen, in what may be the year’s best animated movie.

The film begins with Shaun and the other ovine occupants of Mossy Bottom Farm getting fed up with the daily grind of being sheep, so they concoct a plan to distract sheepdog Bitzer so they can lure the Farmer into a slumber and take over the farmhouse for a well-earned break. Naturally things go awry, and the Farmer ends up whisked off to the Big City. With no one to feed or care for them, Shaun, Bitzer, and the rest hop on a bus and set off to retrieve their friend.

Expanding a series of five-minute-ish shorts to feature length is always a risky proposal, but fortunately we’re in the more than capable hands of Aardman Animation here, and they’ve come up with a plot big enough to fill a feature running time. In a style one might describe as ‘classical’, you can break the film down into individual segments and sequences, each one a crafted vignette of silent slapstick. That doesn’t make the story episodic, but rather serves to keep the humour focused — no gags are overused or outstay their welcome. Indeed, some fly so fast that they’re literally blink-and-you’ll-miss it. I suspect this means Shaun would reward repeat viewings, particularly to spot all the little background details.

It’s also in the details that Shaun proves itself to be a true family film. Like the TV show, it’s sweetly innocent and simple enough for little’uns (that US PG is thanks to a couple of oh-so-rude fart jokes), but there’s a sophistication to the way that simplicity is handled that adults can enjoy. There are also references and in-jokes for the grown-ups; not hidden dirty jokes that’ll put you in the awkward position of having to explain to the kids why you were laughing, but neat puns (note the towns that the Big City is twinned with) and references to other films (like Taxi Driver. Yes, really.)

Naturally, technical aspects are top-notch. Aardman are the kings of claymation, consistently delivering work in which the animation is polished, clever, and surprising, but which also retains the sense that it was achieved by hand (unlike some other films — Corpse Bride, say — which are so slick you begin to wonder if they’re actually CGI). I always marvel at stop-motion anyway — the persistence to animate something a frame at a time, taking days to create one shot and months to create one scene, is a dedication and skill I can barely fathom — but Aardman’s productions routinely push beyond your expectations of the form.

Aardman’s stop-motion silent comedy will certainly lose to Inside Out across the board come awards season (apart from at the BAFTAs, perhaps), but it’s the more inventive, amusing, innovative, accomplished, and impressive achievement. Delightful.

Shaun the Sheep’s Christmas special, The Farmer’s Llamas, is on BBC One on Boxing Day at 6:10pm.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2015. Read more here.

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