It’s been a weird year, in so, so many ways, and really, this month isn’t any particularly weirder. Except that, for the first time since this all started, I’m a little thrown by what to do. On the one hand, movie theaters are “open” and new movies are being “released”. On the other hand, they’re kind of not really. And I’ve run out of silly little themes to construct mini-marathons out of, and Lord knows I’m not starting a new filmmaker retrospective while I’m still carving my way at such a glacial pace through Ingmar Bergman.

So there’s only one thing left: playing catch-up. At the start of August, I posted some polls of the various movies I was thinking about reviewing, and asking you all to help me prioritise them. I’m pretty much solely writing this blog post so that I can have a cleaner, simpler place to keep those polls in one place, so I can keep bumping this more readily. Also because I’m not going to let a once-a-century pandemic keep me from posting a monthly preview, even if there’s really nothing to preview.

Films that did, or were supposed to, open wide
Well, it looks like no matter how long I wait, The Way Back isn’t budging from 1st place, so that’s coming next. I’ve removed that; I’ve also removed Unhinged, which I will be reviewing at the first opportunity, pending availability.

Art films about which I am excited, or for which I have loyalties to the director
Very unmistakable results: Family Romance, LLC is next, followed by Corpus Christi. Those two have been removed.

Smaller films that look interesting to me for this or that reason
It’s extremely obvious what the top 7 are at this point, though the order is fluctuating (alphabetically: An American Pickle, The Assistant, Capone,The Jesus Rolls, She Dies Tomorrow, Shirley, Wendy). I’ve removed them all from the poll, and will review them in whatever order catches my fancy before I get to anything else from this list.

Streaming exclusives
Another list with a very clear top 7, although in a more definite order: Extraction, The Old Guard, and Timmy Failure, followed by Enola Holmes, Eurovision Song Contest, and The One and Only Ivan, followed by The Vast of Night. I’ve removed them and will review them in roughly the order they were ranked at the time. Give or take a boost to Enola Holmes, which was racing up the list at top speed.