We’ve been experiencing a patch of seasonal weather for a change here in the UK, hence the adjective in the title of this month’s review. For some people, such weather might affect their film viewing — getting out while it’s nice and all that. Not me, though — I prefer the colder, winterier weather myself.

Not that staying inside in the cool has done anything to help my film viewing either, mind. It might have done, were it not for my Critical Role addiction continuing to get implausibly stronger: this month it ratcheted up to over 74 hours of my viewing time. During that, I crossed the quarter-way mark of Campaign 2, which made me realise just how long it’s going to take to catch up at my average pace so far (literally years), so that might explain why I watched quite so much this month — some futile attempt to speed that along. “Futile” because, even if I kept up 74 hours a month from now on, it would still take me roughly 16 months to get in pace with new episodes. So maybe I’ll ease off. Or, who knows, maybe I really will watch three solid days’ worth every month until the end of 2025…

#43 Man at the Carlton Tower (1961) — Series Progression #7
#44 Sleepless in Seattle (1993) — Rewatch #6
#45 Argylle (2024) — New Film #6
#46 Fast X (2023) — 50 Unseen #9
#47 Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) — Failure #6
#48 A Separation (2011) — WDYMYHS #5
#49 Yi Yi (2000) — Blindspot #5

• I watched ten feature films I’d never seen before in June.
• Six of them counted towards my 100 Films in a Year Challenge, along with one rewatch.
• The end of June is halfway through the year, of course, so only being on #49 makes it look like I’m behind; but the months are longer in the second half of the year, on average, so #50 isn’t actually ‘due’ until about July 2nd. I had hoped to get to #50 this month nonetheless, but things didn’t quite work out.
• Also not working out as planned this month: Blindspot and WDYMYHS. After failing both last month, I should’ve watched two of each to catch up, but didn’t. On the bright side, I did get them both ticking over; coupled with the fact I’m still on target overall, that’s not too concerning — yet. I’ll try again next month.
• So, this month’s Blindspot film was Edward Yang’s Yi Yi — I finally watched it after three years on the list (sort of: it was on 2022’s list and 2023’s allowed wildcards). It’s hard to say if it lived up to the hype when the hype is so large, but it’s certainly very good.
• And this month’s WDYMYHS film was Iranian relationship drama (that turned out to not really be a relationship drama after all; at least not primarily) A Separation.
• From last month’s “failures” I watched Four Flies on Grey Velvet (though via a UHD download I already had, rather than the Prime Video appearance that earnt its place on the failures list).

Favourite Film of the Month
The past few days I’ve been feeling like I haven’t seen a film I truly loved for ages and, looking back over June’s viewing for this category, I can see that feeling isn’t exactly wrong. There were some I admired this month though, most of all Yi Yi. I wouldn’t bank on anything from June making my year-end best-of list, mind. That said, it’s not been a stellar year all round, so if thing’s don’t pick up…

Least Favourite Film of the Month
On the other hand, it’s not exactly been bad — I have most of my viewing from this month down for a 3 (when I finally get round to posting reviews). Aside from a couple of 4s (and Yi Yi may yet nudge a 5 on reflection), the only outlier is Fast X — I may yet decide that only deserves a 2.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
No reviews this month (oops), so the contenders here are limited to just the two posts from the start of the month. Of those, May’s monthly review triumphed with 77% more views than May’s failures.

No predictions (other than “more Critical Role”), but I’m now beginning to amass movies I missed earlier in 2024 on disc, so I ought to pay attention to those, really. (More details on which movies those are exactly in the failures post, which would normally land tomorrow but might be a day or two late this month.)