VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[DarloKid]

cheers for the recommendations guys!

 

do you all watch with the subs on your the english dubbing?

[Cousin Jim Bob]

I would always go subtitles. Some of the dubs of early HK stuff are laughable. Although that might work in its favour if it's a comedy by making it even dafter but I would recommend using subs.

[Thunderplex]

Speak no Evil.  This is the reason I don’t get pally with people when I’m on holiday.   Cracking movie.  A bit slow burning, but interesting all the way through.

[Lorne Malvo]

Finally catching up on my movie-watching after not seeing a massive amount over the summer:

Thor: Love And Thunder - Lazy boring rubbish.

Brian And Charles - This is a lovely little film even if at times it does struggle to justify it's being turned from a short into a full-length feature.

Where The Crawdads Sing - It's pretty boring and by the numbers, but it didn't deserve the absolute pasting it got critically. For a film thats set in marshland though, everything is way too pretty and clean. To be honest, I'm at the point now where any film that doesn't target the superhero crowd gets a bit of a pass from me, which could be why I didn't mind it too much.

Nope - A really good third act, but I found the first hour of this really oddly paced and it didn't have the effect on me it should've had. Something just seemed missing. The two leads were great.

The Gray Man - A ton of fun. Really wish I'd have seen this at the cinema. Gosling and Evans play off each other really well. Hope there's a sequel for this!

Bullet Train - Could've been a decent style-over-substance action film ala Lucky Number Slevin or Smokin Aces, but gets dragged down by it's really really aggravating sub-Guy Ritchie bits.

The Score - One of the most interesting films I've seen in a while. A crime/musical/romance hybrid (don't worry, the musical parts are few and far between and don't last long) with a really good sense of atmosphere and some cracking performances. I really liked it, Malachi Smyth is one I'll be keeping my eye on.

The Forgiven - Really daft and quite boring. Even Ralph Fiennes seemed to be sleepwalking his way through it.

Juniper - I liked this. It's a story that has been done to death (even if the grandson/grandmother relationship is a nice twist on it) but it does it well and Charlotte Rampling plays 'stern older lady' as perfectly as she always does.

Pinocchio - Both absolutely fine and completely unnecessary all at once.

After Yang - At last, an A24 film that lived up to the hype! This is great. Quite understated but really moving all the same.

Bodies Bodies Bodies - Unbearable priviledged folk getting killed off one by one should be more fun than this. It's okay. Take a drink for everytime a Twitter phrase is shoehorned in (which is kinda the point, but still).

[Devon Malcolm]

Dead for a Dollar

A new Walter Hill film! Have you seen it yet, @Scott Malbranque? And it's actually pretty good! The Assignment was terrible so I had no hope for this at all but it's a really solid and enjoyable western, helped out by having Christoph Waltz, Rachel Brosnahan and Willem Dafoe in it. A very nice surprise.

Vesper

This is getting rave reviews and I really don't see why. A very boring and very long drab sci-fi thing. The only upside is Eddie Marsan isn't as terrible as he has been since he went full cunt on his Twitter.

Lou (Netflix)

Allison Janney has a go at a geriaction film. She's really good, as is Jurnee Smollett, but Tom Hardy B (Logan Marshall Green) isn't and neither is the film. Bit disappointed in this.

Inside Out (cinema)

Delighted to catch this at the cinema. Might be my favourite Pixar but I need to rewatch Up and Wall-E. Bill Hader's voice work is the winner here.

Do Revenge (Netflix)

The latest Netflix-er is a millennial update of Strangers on a Train by the same director who did the terrible Someone Great. It's not as bad but that's not a compliment. One or two decent ideas and Maya Hawke is really good but the dialogue is a fucking joke and it's too long. Sarah Michelle Gellar, though.

Bad Santa

Finally got round to watching this. Exactly as funny as everyone says it is. Lauren Graham is everyone's dream woman.

East of Eden

I've watched two of James Dean's films now and they weren't any good and he wasn't very good in either of them. Maybe Giant will turn it around for the lad?

Dark of the Sun

Brutal late 60s adventure film, like an African colonial Von Ryan's Express. Tons of great action and unpleasantness, I naturally loved it. Rod Taylor was a scary man.

Death Becomes Her

Bruce Willis should have done more roles like this. I never wanted to watch this because I don't like Meryl Streep so much that I wouldn't even watch it for Goldie Hawn. I was wrong though, it's excellent.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Watched this for Amy Adams dressed as Amelia Earhart and it was a good decision.

Hot Rod

This is my hat now.

[Chest Rockwell]

Thanks for the write ups, but I can't in good conscience upvote and endorse watching Christmas movies in September

[Scott Malbranque]

Spoiler

Was that her looking at them on the boat, coz if it was, it didn't make any sense and if it wasn't, it didn't make any sense

I wasn't going to give Dead for a Dollar a rally because I saw it was getting gik reviews, but I've always loved Walter Hill and I've said before that I adore his Western aesthetics (Last Man Standing is a criminally underrated and oft maligned flick. That Ry Cooder score too. Wow.), and I've also always loved you, D-Mal, so I'm all in tomorrow day or night as I'm out out OUT tonight and that'll hopefully soothe the hangover. 

Lou was a mad one. I didn't know whether I liked it or not. Shit Tom Hardy was shit but handsome, I quite fancied Allison Janney and I was into the movie but turmed to Weetabix in the final third. And the ending? State of it. Spoiler up there. 

Edit - Ah no. I can't figure out the Spoiler thing. It's up the top for Lou in all and anyways. 

Edited October 1, 2022 by Scott Malbranque

[Devon Malcolm]

7 minutes ago, Scott Malbranque said:

  Hide contents

Was that her looking at them on the boat, coz if it was, it didn't make any sense and if it wasn't, it didn't make any sense

I wasn't going to give Dead for a Dollar a rally because I saw it was getting gik reviews, but I've always loved Walter Hill and I've said before that I adore his Western aesthetics (Last Man Standing is a criminally underrated and oft maligned flick. That Ry Cooder score too. Wow.), and I've also always loved you, D-Mal, so I'm all in tomorrow day or night as I'm out out OUT tonight and that'll hopefully soothe the hangover. 

It's not up there with his best or anything, obviously, but it's definitely worth a spin. Hope you like it!

[Devon Malcolm]

Vengeance (cinema)

A bit funny to watch this now as I recently started watching The Office and BJ Novak wrote, acted in and directed this. Definitely one of the best films of the year so far, has a lot to say but does so wrapped in an interesting mystery with a great ending. Also features an actual decent Boyd Holbrook performance. The temp did good.

[Factotum]

9 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Also features an actual decent Boyd Holbrook performance. The temp did good.

And a good Ashton Kutcher performance as well!

[Devon Malcolm]

27 minutes ago, Factotum said:

And a good Ashton Kutcher performance as well!

Yes, forgot to mention how good he is here. Cast is quirky but they're all really good so it's easily forgiven.

[Mr_Danger]

On 10/1/2022 at 12:37 PM, Devon Malcolm said:

It's not up there with his best or anything, obviously, but it's definitely worth a spin. Hope you like it!

I watched his Geronimo film on Netflix last week and would probably give that this recommendation. It’s a film that’s clearly torn between biopic and Hollywood western. I kind of wish they went full Young Guns with it because a film where Robert Duvall, Matt Damon, Jason Patrick go hunting down the last of the Apache whilst questioning the morality of it all is probably more interesting than this turns out to be. Either that or actually tell the Geronimo story from Geronimo’s point of view. Great cast though and watching some Gene Hackman is never a waste of time.

[CleetusVanDamme]

@Devon Malcolm You were right about Monster Hunter. Surprisingly okay. Like all Anderson films it achieved what it set out to do (make Mila look sexy and cool*) pretty well, some good chemistry between her and Jaa, some decent action and very little dialogue/character development/explanation of what's going on, which is great because no one cares! No RPG-related property has any right being this not boring or crap. Netflix should let Anderson do The Witcher, I'd watch!

* For the sake of clarity, I again have the count at mostly sexy.

[Hannibal Scorch]

Amsterdam is a bloated mess of a film. Tonally all over the place with a film that starts threads and then ignores them later on. Christian Bale’s Columbo pastiche feels like his attempt at creating a Benoit Blanc character, John David Washington is great as ever. In fact most of the cast are great, just the material is so messy they feel like they are acting in a straight up comedy which I don’t think was the original plan. Looks beautiful but even that can’t save it. 6/10.

[Keith Houchen]

Mixtape. Set in 1999, an orphaned girl finds a tape her parents made and accidentally breaks it so she tries to track down all the songs on it. I really enjoyed this, not too saccharine and a cracking soundtrack!