VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[tiger_rick]

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

There’s something quite comforting knowing it’s on the same platform as all those Marvel films. 

My daughter's got her first proper boyfriend. He's constantly round our house with her and has got her watching superhero shite. He's half deaf too so has the volume at 800 and subtitles on.

I've told her I saw him in the pub with another girl.

[Keith Houchen]

That’s proper parenting, that. Good arrows, Rick. 

[Devon Malcolm]

Uncle Frank (Prime)

Basically a gay Green Book. So definitely winning 14 Oscars. It's got Steve Zahn in it, so that's something.

Lapsis

This is on Film4 tonight but I watched it a few days ago and thought it was great. More a satire on the gig economy than a sci-fi film, it's really smart and enjoyable but not to all tastes.

Pirates (cinema)

Reggie Yates made a film. Yeah, that Reggie Yates. Nothing you haven't seen before but a decent little Laaaaaaahndon comedy that reminded me of that excellent Scotch film Beats from a couple of years ago. If you like garage music, you'll love the soundtrack but I don't so I hated it. The three leads are great though and it was pretty funny so I'll let it off.

Coming Home in the Dark (Netflix)

Super bleak horror-thriller with a couple of outstanding shocks. New Zealand's pretty good at this sort of thing for some reason. The ending's not good but the rest of it really is.

Shiva Baby (Prime)

Combine this with Uncut Gems and suddenly we have a New Jewish Anxiety Wave on our hands. Claustrophobic, uncomfortable and really, really good. Rachel Sennott is the best new actress I've seen this year.

Save Yourselves! 

Really funny low budget sci-fi thing about an alien invasion by fluffy balls. Takes a while to get going but one of those films that only a bastard wouldn't like. And as there are loads on here, you'd be best off avoiding it. Loved this though.

Silk Road

Personally amazed that a film about the dark web and crypto-currency would be this boring. How does Jason Clarke keep getting work? An absolute load of fucking crap.

Land

Robin Wright's first film as a director. Again, pretty predictable wilderness adventure stuff but you also get to look at Robin Wright for an hour and a half. Bonus - a very good dog. It's quite decent overall, actually.

Silent Night (cinema)

An apocalyptic Christmas Festen with Keira Knightley and friends. That goes a long way with me but this is dead funny in places and also really depressing. Anti-vaxxers will love it and look fucking dumber because it was actually shot before the pandemic. Pretty good, and also I love Annabelle Wallis.

[wordsfromlee]

1 minute ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Silk Road

Personally amazed that a film about the dark web and crypto-currency would be this boring. How does Jason Clarke keep getting work? An absolute load of fucking crap.

I've heard this is very boring from numerous other people which I find mad considering the true story it's based on is so fascinating. 

[Keith Houchen]

Villains (Netflix). A nice little comedy thriller type thing with great performances from the main 4, especially Jeffrey Donovan. Clocking in at around the 90 minute mark too!

[Devon Malcolm]

28 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Villains (Netflix). A nice little comedy thriller type thing with great performances from the main 4, especially Jeffrey Donovan. Clocking in at around the 90 minute mark too!

Yeah, I liked this too. Maika Monroe is great, she deserves a couple of big roles by now.

[SaitoRyo]

Villains was very enjoyable, yeah. Echo what Dev says about Maika Monroe, too. She has a very unique charisma about her. 

Just watched Willy's Wonderland. There's a few decent things in there, but Nicolas Cage fighting evil animatronic for eighty minutes should really be a lot more fun than it is. 

[Devon Malcolm]

Spencer (cinema)

Successfully manages to satirise the entire royal machine while being a strangely thrilling biopic that's almost like a psychological horror films at times. Pablo Larrain is a great director so that he does something so interesting with this is no surprise (check out pretty much everything else by him, especially Tony Manero and The Club), but Kristen Stewart produces easily the best work of her career. She's going to win an Oscar and, for once, they'll be right.

Pig

It's just a shame that Cage spends so much time making shit films because this deserves way more attention than it's actually getting. A really well crafted drama that strangely gets gentler as it goes on. Cage once again shows how good he can be when he's not doing his usual mad schtick.

C'mon C'mon (cinema)

A really beautiful film from Mike Mills (not that one), and a wonderful follow-up to his 20th Century Girls. Phoenix is superb as ever, but this is one of the year's best - a coming-of-age story that actually has something profound to say about adult / child relationships. Awesome soundtrack too.

Elf (cinema)

I'd never actually seen this before because I prefer Christmas films to be darker and more miserable. But manages to be pretty funny and good even though Will Ferrell's in it. Deschanel as a blonde didn't work for me though, Clive.

The Ice Road (Prime)

Maybe Liam Neeson's come to the end of the road (oh ho!) when it comes to doing action stuff now. This is a really tired Sorcerer / Wages of Fear riff. Amber Midthunder, in support, is really good though and I'm looking forward to how she gets on in the lead of the next Predator film. I wish I was called Amber Midthunder.

Monster Hunter 

An actual (near) Christmas miracle - I watched an actual good film from Paul WS Anderson. Well, maybe it's not actually good but it is really enjoyable. Free of the usual Anderson bullshit and is just manic from start to finish. Surprising amount of chemistry between Jovovich and Tony Jaa too.

Voyagers 

Mediocre sci-fi, one of those 'the Earth's dying, let's colonise somewhere else, everything goes to shit on the ship' things. Mostly boring until the ending, not nearly as violent or horny as it should have been.

I'm Your Woman (Prime)

Hadn't heard of this until a couple of weeks ago - but it's one of the best films of the year. Slow build crime drama, Rachel Brosnahan kills it in the lead, and style-wise it reminded me a bit of Carl Franklin's 90s stuff. And as a few on here love One False Move and Devil in a Blue Dress, that should say a lot. Absolutely loved this.

Beckett (Netflix)

Everyone loves Hitchcock on here so some of you might get a kick out of this thriller. Denzel's lad is really good again, and it's mostly really enjoyable aside from the odd slow spell. Boyd Holbrook fucking sucks as usual though.

[LaGoosh]

Last Night In Soho - Edgar Wright is a terrible writer and this is a terrible film. Thomasin Mackenzie is extremely annoying in this too. After this and Baby Driver I think I'll avoid Wright's work in future. He's lost it.

[Hannibal Scorch]

8-Bit Christmas (sky/Now) - Reminded me of a more modern take of A Christmas Story about a boy who wanted a NES for Christmas in the late 80’s. Reasonably funny but also sweet. 90 minutes as well so doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

Anna And The Apocalypse - such a fun, festive take on your typical zombie movie, the musical numbers caught me off guard but work so well and the cast gel together well

[Devon Malcolm]

F9 

A huge improvement over The F8 of the Furious, but still juggling too many characters and doesn't really compensate for losing Stath and Rocky. Big Match John does the business, of course.

Out of Death (Netflix)

Curiosity led me to have a look at what Bruce Willis has been up to the last 10 years. This manages to be even worse than its title. Ooh love, we're out of death. Can you nip to the Co-Op and get some.

The Tomorrow War (Prime)

Another $200 million action film released this year where you wonder where the fucking money went. Actually quite decent though considering it's Chris Pratt. Sam Richardson and Betty Gilpin helped this a lot, for very different reasons.

Finch 

It's Tom Hanks and his robot / dog family. Of course it's worth seeing.

The Little Things

You know a film's in trouble when even Denzel can't be arsed. What's worse is that it has Jared Leto AND Rami Malek in it. They're both just totally awful actors and this is a very bad film and it should feel bad.

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (Prime)

Can see some absolutely hating this and others loving it. I thought it was immensely stupid in very good ways and I laughed a lot. Jamie Dornan and Richard Cheese MVPs.

Luca

Pixar are in a really good run of undemanding and nice films. Not everything has to be Inside Out or Up. Probably would have looked lovely at the cinema but this way I didn't pay Disney.

The Dry

Who's the big Eric Bana fan round here? Or did I imagine it? Either way, a pretty good Aussie neo-noir with a good cast and a well-paced story. Worth tracking down.

The Protege

Another solid Martin Campbell actioner. Not quite as good as The Foreigner or Goldeneye but still worth the sit. Maggie Q is bloody great and even Michael Keaton mucks in with some fight scenes.

Old Henry

Excellent western with similarities to Unforgiven. Tim Blake Nelson is one of the best character actors around and it was quality to see him in a lead role and looking so comfortable. The twist is wild. Stephen Dorff as the lead bad guy! He does a great job too.

Stillwater

Two hours and twenty minutes of Matt Damon wandering around Marseille and bonding with a cute kid. Maybe Amanda Knox was just as upset with how boring this is.

[Jazzy G]

Couldn't sleep the other night and my Autistic brain was crying out for dinosaur based content so I ended up watching both Dinosaur and The Good Dinosaur on Disney+. 

Dinosaur looked really impressive, but the story was one that's been done several times before, and as soon as all the incredibly well rendered dinosaurs started speaking it killed the while thing. It was fine otherwise, but would have been much improved by being played out in silence, or with just the dinosaur/prehistoric critter noises. 

The Good Dinosaur was a Pixar movie. It was odd that while humans had evolved Dinosaurs still looked ostensibly the same as they did millions of years earlier and the only real evolution was that they could speak and somebody build stone structures using their mouths. Still not awful, but watchable at that time in the night/morning. 

[Mr_Danger]

20 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Couldn't sleep the other night and my Autistic brain was crying out for dinosaur based content so I ended up watching both Dinosaur and The Good Dinosaur on Disney+. 

Dinosaur looked really impressive, but the story was one that's been done several times before, and as soon as all the incredibly well rendered dinosaurs started speaking it killed the while thing. It was fine otherwise, but would have been much improved by being played out in silence, or with just the dinosaur/prehistoric critter noises. 

The Good Dinosaur was a Pixar movie. It was odd that while humans had evolved Dinosaurs still looked ostensibly the same as they did millions of years earlier and the only real evolution was that they could speak and somebody build stone structures using their mouths. Still not awful, but watchable at that time in the night/morning. 

Strangely enough this was not a criticism of my 4 year old! Get on to The Croods if your brain wants to move on to some caveman goodness. A decent enough film.

[chokeout]

On 12/11/2021 at 10:13 PM, LaGoosh said:

Last Night In Soho - Edgar Wright is a terrible writer and this is a terrible film. Thomasin Mackenzie is extremely annoying in this too. After this and Baby Driver I think I'll avoid Wright's work in future. He's lost it.

Baby driver is all over the place but from a technical point of view is a stunningly made film and has its moments and is silly fun.   
just watched Last Night In Soho and it’s a Tales From the Crypt / weaker episode of Inside No 9 stretched out to 2 hours and is a waste of everyone in it. I was massively disappointed. Also Matt Smith may be the oddest looking leading man in Hollywood.