The Record-Breaking Monthly Update for April 2018

While Infinity War sets about breaking box office records, I’m breaking some of my own…

#58 Paddington 2 (2017)
#59 The Director and the Jedi (2018)
#60 The Hurricane Heist (2018)
#61 The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017)
#62 Baywatch Extended Cut (2017)
#63 Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
#64 Knocked Up (2007)
#65 Logan Lucky (2017)
#66 American Psycho (2000)
#67 Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)
#68 Shockproof (1949)
#69 Das Boot: The Director’s Cut (1981/1997)
#70 Geostorm 3D (2017)
#71 A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
#72 The Karate Kid (2010)
#73 Princess Mononoke (1997), aka Mononoke-hime
#74 Witness (1985)
#75 Muppets from Space (1999)
#76 Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (1964), aka Zatôichi kesshô-tabi
#77 When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
#78 Identity (2003)
#79 American Assassin (2017)
#80 Call Me by Your Name (2017)
#81 The Room (2003)
#82 The Disaster Artist (2017)
#83 Killing Gunther (2017)
#84 The Snowman (2017)
#85 The Death of Stalin (2017)
#86 Yes Man (2008)
#87 Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
#88 New York, New York (1977)
#89 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 3D (2017)
#90 Wild Strawberries (1957), aka Smultronstället

.

• I watched 33 new films this month — more than one a day, on average (and that’s not counting my rewatches).
• More importantly, that means it passes October 2015 as my Best. Month. Ever!
• Obviously that means it affects a bunch of stats: it boosts the April average by more than two films, from 10.0 to 12.1; increases the rolling average of the last 12 months by over a film-and-a-half, from 15.2 to 16.8; and makes the 2018 average-to-date surge by three-and-a-half films, from 19 to 22.5. If I maintained that average all year, my final tally would be 270!
• Building on a decent-to-strong first three months, #90 is also the furthest I’ve reached by the end of April (the previous best being #88 in 2016). I should definitely cross the #100 mark next month, therefore, likely on the earliest date I’ve ever reached it.
• One record this month didn’t achieve: the earliest I’ve reached the three-quarters point. I watched #75 on April 16th this year, but in 2016 I was there on April 8th.
• Over a third of this month’s viewing was films from 2017 — 12, to be precise. (Once upon a time, 12 total would’ve been a really good month.) And that’s even with going through a 13-film stretch in the middle where I only watched two films from the whole of the 2010s. It was a really big month, basically.
• Downside to all this: I now have a backlog of 90 films waiting to be reviewed. Ninety! When I started that “coming soon” page it was because I’d reached the terribly high backlog of ten.
• This month’s Blindspot film: the shortest film on this year’s lists, Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries.
• This month’s WDYMYHS film: the longest film on this year’s lists, Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot: The Director’s Cut.

The 35th Monthly Arbitrary Awards

Favourite Film of the Month
Maybe I’m still a bit caught up in the hype, but I reckon the film I most enjoyed this month was Avengers: Infinity War. After reading glowing reviews before seeing it, I went in with tempered expectations — at this point I’ve seen plenty of Marvel movies that I felt had been overrated by early buzz, starting with the very first, Iron Man (I wrote about that in my review, even. I also said “what it most resembles is a great TV pilot” — oh, little did I know how relevant that view would become!) But Infinity War, while not perfect, did put a smile on my face.

Least Favourite Film of the Month
You may’ve noticed in the above list that I watched The Room this month, the cult favourite “worst movie of all time” that has been described as “the Citizen Kane of bad movies”. But, as the fact it has a fanbase will attest, that film actually has considerable entertainment value, and so it didn’t even come close to making my five-strong shortlist for this Arbie. No, I’m going to give this (dis)honour to Geostorm, which is certainly trash but can’t even manage to be entertaining trash.

Longest Slog of the Month
The director’s cut of Das Boot may be three-and-a-half hours long and have bits I’d’ve cut back, but overall it’s a quality work. I wouldn’t say the same about New York, New York. It’s not often one cites a Martin Scorsese film as the worst of something, but, out of all 33 films I watched this month, perhaps the least enjoyable overall experience was slogging through those two-and-a-half-hours-plus-six-minutes-and-thirty-seconds-beyond-that. Sometimes watching on DVD has its advantages: without PAL speed-up it would’ve lasted another six-and-a-half minutes.

Best Storm of the Month
Storms were everywhere this month, be they of the world-threatening “geo” variety, or a hurricane so bad you could carry off a massive heist during it, or merely one that strands a bunch of strangers at a motel with a serial killer (in Identity). There may well have been some smaller ones I’ve forgotten, too. Anyway, for the sheer volume of wind and water being chucked around — and because it was the best part of the movie — this month’s best storm was definitely the one that enabled The Hurricane Heist.

The Audience Award for Most-Viewed New Post of the Month
Sometimes reviews posted right near the end of the month don’t have the time to pick up much attention, even when they’re of new releases. Not so with this month’s victor, Avengers: Infinity War — in its first day it gained almost six times as many hits as the second-place post (The Hurricane Heist) had in three weeks. As of midnight on the 30th, it’s already my 8th most-read film review of all time.

Anvil	Avengers: Infinity War
Benji	The Boss Baby
Candyman	The Dark Tower
The Director and the Jedi	Geostorm
The Hurricane Heist	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
The Monster Squad	Popstar
Shrek	Shrek 2
Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold	Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword

The Past Month on TV #32

Another slightly lighter month means I’ve now slipped back to being merely on-target with my Rewatchathon. Still, that’s not really anything to complain about.

#14 Shrek 2 (2004)
#15 Mission: Impossible II (2000)
#16 Liar Liar (1997)

Despite my predictions last month, I didn’t rewatch any Marvel films before Infinity War in the end. I did get back on both my Shrek and Mission: Impossible rewatches, though. Indeed, my rewatch of Shrek is now complete, because the first two were the only ones I’d previously seen.

M:i-2 was part of my 100 Favourites series the year before last, but I hadn’t actually watched it for a decade or more. Consequently, after this rewatch I spotted a couple of errors in my 100 Favourites post… which I’ve now fixed. Anyhow, I stand by my assertion that its qualities are undervalued — I wrote a bit about them on Letterboxd.

Don’t call it a comeback — I’ve been here for years. I’m rocking my peers, puttin’ suckers in fear, makin’ the tears rain down like a monsoon. Listen to the bass go boom!