VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[BomberPat]

I hardly ever go to the cinema for new releases any more, but made an exception for Cassandro last night.

It's flawed - it can feel unstructured at times, particularly in the third act, and there are some stylistic choices that felt at odds with the realism of the rest of the film - but I loved it. Gael Garcia Bernal does a fantastic job of going from awkward outsider to fully inhabiting the Cassandro character by the end, to the point that you could honestly forget that you're not watching the real Cassandro by the end - considering I've met the real Cassandro on a few occasions, I'd consider that high praise. 

It makes some odd choices, both with the flow of the narrative and with when it does or doesn't decide to stick to the "real" story (the latter being far less important, of course), but Bernal's performance carries it above and beyond what could have been quite rote biopic fare. A solid supporting cast helps, too - Roberta Colindrez is good as Cassandro's fairly no-nonsense mentor, Bad Bunny puts in a decent turn, and El Hijo del Santo, unsurprisingly, does a good job of playing a younger El Hijo del Santo. 

[SuperBacon]

That's on Prime today, so think I'll watch that later. 

A wrestling film thread in on-topic might be quite fun actually...

[Chest Rockwell]

@Butch2000 for the post on Russell Madness (I can only assume they were legally prohibited from calling it Russellmania). 

[Butch2000]

 

[Bellenda Carlisle]

The Equalizer 1, 2 & 3 never got round to seeing any of them so watched the first 2 to see the new one. 

The first one was 10 times better than I expected, I loved it. Was a great mix of different low level situations for him to help with, escalating a bit to some serious shit and I really liked Chloe Grace Moretz as the teen prostitute, their friendship felt quite realistic for how unrealistic it was.

By the second film they'd mostly lost that local street level stuff much to the detriment of the story and Denzel is now a globe trotting superspy adventurer who might as well be James Bond or Ethan Hunt, it was still pretty cool and I liked him helping that local young guy and trying to keep him on the straight and narrow. Denzel is pretty much fighting like John Wick at this point and is totally OP, also him fighting crime in his local area and then going back to his normal life is starting to stretch the realism a bit. 

The third film is entirely set in Italy, totally ditching the last shreds of the realistic low key local vigilante aspect. It plays more like a spaghetti western with him as the badass stranger arriving in a new town and helping them against the baddies. Denzel is now literally fighting like a horror movie killer - coming out of the shadows to surprise people by stabbing them or cutting their heads off. His actions are pretty indistinguishable from Michael Myers or Jason Voorhies in his last fight. Still not bad, especially if you look at it as a western. 

Edit: I forgot to mention my worst thing about the Equalizer movie series; They didn't use the Equalizer tv show theme tune at all. The theme music was the best thing about the Equalizer and they really should have used it in some way.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Bellenda Carlisle

[Surf Digby]

Did they not include the melody in the music for the first one? Maybe it was only in the trailer, but I'm sure they snuck it in somewhere.

[LaGoosh]

On 9/22/2023 at 11:35 AM, BomberPat said:

I hardly ever go to the cinema for new releases any more, but made an exception for Cassandro last night.

It's flawed - it can feel unstructured at times, particularly in the third act, and there are some stylistic choices that felt at odds with the realism of the rest of the film - but I loved it. Gael Garcia Bernal does a fantastic job of going from awkward outsider to fully inhabiting the Cassandro character by the end, to the point that you could honestly forget that you're not watching the real Cassandro by the end - considering I've met the real Cassandro on a few occasions, I'd consider that high praise. 

It makes some odd choices, both with the flow of the narrative and with when it does or doesn't decide to stick to the "real" story (the latter being far less important, of course), but Bernal's performance carries it above and beyond what could have been quite rote biopic fare. A solid supporting cast helps, too - Roberta Colindrez is good as Cassandro's fairly no-nonsense mentor, Bad Bunny puts in a decent turn, and El Hijo del Santo, unsurprisingly, does a good job of playing a younger El Hijo del Santo. 

My favourite Cassandro related thing is that Justin Lee Collins documentary show where in one episode he tried luchadore training and was so physically unfit he bizarrely couldn't even jump over a traffic cone and had an emotional breakdown over it. Cassandro, bless em, showed remarkable sympathy for Justin instead of just laughing at him, like everyone else rightly would have. 

[GlennCullen]

On 9/21/2023 at 3:41 PM, SuperBacon said:

Off topic but I have to say, I have a massive soft spot for that film and watching it back not long ago, it hasn't aged terribly.

Really good fun. And Dyer is just fantastic. "You know, really fucking hurt the geezer"

Decided to watch this. Wasn't bad actually, mainly due to Dyer. Couldn't stand the lead guy though, although maybe that's by design. 

[Bellenda Carlisle]

The Creator 

I saw a mystery preview screening of this where the audience didn't know what the film was going to be (oddly it was only 1 day before general release). Anyway, I was not prepared for this film, it's a very thought provoking science fiction spectacular. I don't want to give too much away but I thought it was excellent, it had blockbuster SFX, a great "original" story and I even had to pull my hood up at one point so no one could see I was welling up.

It wasn't perfect but it was giving me Terminator, Avatar and District 9 and is exactly the sort of thing I want to see at the cinema, I want everyone to see it so we keep getting movies like this.

PS what happened to this thread? It's so dead these days. Talk about films people.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Bellenda Carlisle

[Loki]

Well, I watched that Copshop movie on Netflix.  It's the same director as Smoking' Aces, and a few other action films (his A-Team being actually a lot of fun).

The first 10 minutes of this were really promising - kind of a Tarantino/Rodriquez feel to it with the music and the flashy editing, and a Precinct 13 homage setup.  And to be fair all the actors were trying their best to give the characters dimension.

But without the very clever writing of a Tarantino, it ultimately fell flat.  The characters weren't cool enough, their dialogue wasn't zippy enough, and the plot trundled along entirely predictably.

What was noteworthy was Poundland Russell Crowe, Gerard Butler, being actually pretty good as a grizzled hitman.  He's actually better than Frank Grillo who I really rate, whose part is a bit too weasly for an action lead.

There was a point where, were the action film market star-driven in the way it was in the 80s, I think Frank Grillo could have been a huge star.  Wheelman is genuinely fucking great and shows exactly how to play to his strengths.  But looking at his output he does a LOT of DTV, TV movies and general shit, with the occasional spot on a Marvel film or whatever.

[Hannibal Scorch]

These days Poundland Russell Crowe is actually Russell Crowe

Edited September 28, 2023 by Hannibal Scorch

[Bellenda Carlisle]

13 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

These days Poundland Russell Crowe is actually Russell Crowe

The Pope's Exorcist was great!

[Hannibal Scorch]

34 minutes ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

The Pope's Exorcist was great!

As are most of Gerald Butlers output.  But Russell Crowe is only a step above the Nic Cage low budget DTV Films at this point.

[cobra_gordo]

Gerard Butler is in a similar camp to me as Jason Statham in that I know if I see his name in a film I'm probably going to have a good time. Watched his new one Kandahar the other night and whilst it takes its time to get going it's enjoyable and Butler is solid in it.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

I think Gerard Butler is awful, one of the most boring leading men around. I didn't mind that recentish plane one though.