VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[Devon Malcolm]

16 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

The Beekeeper - John Wick for cunts.

Is this at all necessary?

[Bellenda Carlisle]

no spoilers 

Cinema

Night Swim (deseeeerves a quiet night.) I really enjoyed this, rare that I find a horror film scary (even jumped at a jump scare), helped by the also rare occurence that I liked the protagonists enough that I didn't want anything bad to happen to them.

The Boy and the Heron this was weird even for me, it was lovely though. I thought it was going to be a realistic Kes type story about a boy befriending a heron, it was not. Wish more western animation was like this, not all Pixar type stuff.

Poor Things I've wanted to see this for so long and it was basically everything i expected and wanted from it. Possibly more sex than it needed which is something you will probably never hear me say before or again. Emma Stone was brillant as always. Mark Ruffalo was absolutely terrible in it but I still loved the movie

Priscilla not a fan of Sofia Coppola normally but her dreamy feminine style really made this. Thought it was going to be heavy handed but it was really well done and I enjoyed it way more than i expected. Great soundrack, Elordi only looked anything like Elvis when shot in profile but I liked his performance. Don't expect any scenes of the making of naked gun

The Beekeper really fun, I've always liked a straightforward mid budget action film no matter the decade. Statham shockingly plays a no nonsense badass out for revenge. Stath is possibly his most OP ever and batters a john wick amount of people. 

Wonka I didn't love it, i appreciated the timeless fantastical vibe. Timmee was fine, I liked the big henchman boarding house dude. I thought the girl was in it too much, would have preferred the Oompa Loompa in the main sidekick role, he was the best thing in it.

Random thing I had on my hard drive for ages

The Three Stooges (2000 biopic) Mel Gibson produced cheap TV movie about the 3 stooges, when it was good it was interesting but some parts were inaccurate and the last half was so rushed it was wild, needed another 20 minutes and less of the poinless bookend segments. Michael (Vic Mackey) Chiklis as Curly was the highlight.

[Hannibal Scorch]

4 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Is this at all necessary?

The movie or my comment, because there is a strong argument for both, but I’ll update that.

@Bellenda Carlisle have you seen the more recent 3 Stooges with Will Sasso? Thought it was an interesting film which didn’t miss as much as I expected.

Edited January 14 by Hannibal Scorch

[Bellenda Carlisle]

4 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

The movie or my comment, because there is a strong argument for both, but I’ll update that.

@Bellenda Carlisle have you seen the more recent 3 Stooges with Will Sasso? Thought it was an interesting film which didn’t miss as much as I expected.

Yeah but I would have preferred it with Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Jim Carrey like was apparently in development for years before it became that. 

[SuperBacon]

24 minutes ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

Random thing I had on my hard drive for ages

28 minutes ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

The Three Stooges (2000 biopic) Mel Gibson

[cobra_gordo]

Lift. Saw the first 20 minutes, fell asleep, saw the last 10 minutes. I have no desire to see or find out what happened in that middle bit.

American Gangster. I've no idea why it's taken me so long to watch this but Jesus, what a film. It's starting to become apparent that Denzel is one of my favourite actors, there's a charm to him that even when he's playing utter bastards they're not one-note EVIL BECAUSE REASONS villains and have some depth. Probably a contender for the surreal casts thread too because it felt like every two seconds I was doing the DiCaprio pointing gif when somebody I recognised wandered on screen. Can't wait to watch it again.

[BomberPat]

Godzilla Minus One. Absolutely fantastic, lives up to all of the hype. Brilliantly paced, gets back to the roots of Godzilla being a story about the trauma of Japan's losses in WW2 without ever feeling too preachy or hammering it home, despite the fact that it repeatedly tells you out loud that that's what they're doing. Every plot point gets the most heavy-handed foreshadowing imaginable, and yet it all works, because it's just a really well made film. 

Almost every Godzilla film features shots of him emerging from the ocean, and shots of the first waves of destruction being against fishing boats and whatnot, but this is the first time I've really seen him treated as a sea monster first and foremost, and I really enjoyed that approach

[Surf Digby]

On 1/11/2024 at 7:17 PM, mim731 said:

Couldn't decide whether this should go in Dull Men's Club, or in here, so apologies if the wrong thread. Odeon was my local cinema in London growing up, so this brought back some excellent childhood memories. Might be of interest to a few others. 

 

 

 

I grew up going to an ABC, and so got treated to the Pearl & Dean classic. I once went to the Empire (formerly Odeon) in Sutton Coldfield wearing my Pearl & Dean T-shirt. The girl behind the ticket counter panicked thinking I was a rep making a visit that wasn't on their planner, as Empire's advertising was handled by P&D. *Chortle*

 

 

On 1/11/2024 at 8:58 PM, SuperBacon said:

The Richmond Odeon at the top of the hill was an absolutely beautiful regal building with a massive pit in front and ornamental decor.

Pretty much my only Cinema going experience until I was around 13. Kingston was just as wonderful, with a really unique lobby/foyer and the building still stands today as Pryzm.

Lovely example of an atmospheric type, without it going too gimmicky. Clearly not originally built for Odeon, looks more like a Granada or Paramount style. #nerd.

[SaitoRyo]

Wish - Cinema trip with the kids and their grandparents. It's obviously a bit shite and the sort of Disney film you'd get if you put other, better classic Disney films in a blender, but the kids enjoyed it and that's what matters, innit? 

Lone Wolf McQuade - A perfect film. 

The Nature of the Beast - Not a perfect film, but a very good, simple-yet-effective suspense thriller. Lance Henriksen is really good in it. Eric Roberts is memorable, if not exactly 'good'. Victor Salva is still a nonce, though, so you may not want to support this motion picture. 

[mim731]

7 hours ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

Lovely example of an atmospheric type, without it going too gimmicky. Clearly not originally built for Odeon, looks more like a Granada or Paramount style. #nerd.

I love those old classic cinema interiors. At the risk of derailing the thread (Bacon might be right, this might be worth splitting out to a separate thread) I always loved going to the Odeon in Muswell Hill as a kid. This is before Muswell Hill became the playground for the uber-rich, when it was just somewhere that had one of three cinemas we could reach by bus (Holloway being another that was absolutely stunning as a building). It's an Everyman now and they've tarted it up, sadly, but the old interiors were beautiful.

[Chris B]

If we're feeling nostalgic for older cinemas, try and see Scala!!! - it's all about the years when the venue in King's Cross was a cheap cinema, which would programme legendary all-nighters, where the audience would be a mixture of weirdoes, future celebs, and weirdo future celebs, who all explain why they love it.*

I'm gutted it was before my time in London. The doc is amazing and while there are still some great independent cinemas in London, I loved the sound and vibe of this.

 

 

*I'm proud of this sentence. Can you spot why?

Edited January 16 by Chris B

[Keith Houchen]

All the old style cinemas will be cracking Wetherspoons in the near future. 

[Onyx2]

7 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

All the old style cinemas will be cracking Wetherspoons in the near future. 

Sadly that's true of The Peter Cushing in Whitstable - although at least the building is being used for *something*. 

Popped to Whitstable on a day trip and needed the loo, a Wetherspoons is always a safe bet. The toilets were upstairs and it's then I twigged they'd been sited in the old projector booths. The bar is where the screen was, and there's an enormous frieze of cinema goers looking at the back of your neck while you order a drink. 

 

[BigJag]

Race for Glory-Audi Vs Lancia

They set out to tell the story of Audi and Lancias rivalry over the 1983 World Rally Championship. This was at a time when Rally cars were at their peak. The Group B era allowed manufacturers to produce cars of incredible ability. Audi had their Quattro (4 wheel drive). Lancia took them on with a 2 wheel drive car. The Lancia overall was considered the lesser car of the two. However, Lancia were able to get probably the greatest driver of all time into their car, Walter Rohrl. This period of Rallying had immense talent in virtually all areas. Drivers, Engineers, and team principles.

The film has been produced by Rally fans and stars Daniel Bruhl as the head of Audi Rally. Riccardo Scamarcio is the head of the Lancia team. The story of the film seems to be told from Riccardo Scamarcio characters perspective.

They barely even mention Michelle Mouton. Who at the time was driving for Audi and unfortunately never quite managed to take the drivers title. She came second in the 1982 Championship.

Watching the film I found it really strange that they seemed to completely fabricate certain stories. That had some grounding in history. Yet they changed a number of details to force then into this film. There's a big crash depicted at one point. Which is based on a crash that happened a couple of years later. Fairly important and long portions of the film are spoken in French or Italian. For some strange reason my version didn't have subtitles for those sections. Which spoils the flow of the film. 

It's filmed well. The cars a presented well as are the locations. Ultimately it left me unsatisfied. Ford Vs Ferrari is a much better film, that does a decent job of telling that story.

There's a great documentary that covers the Group B Era. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qjf2v

Definitely worth tracking down. It's better than Race for Glory.

 

[mim731]

15 hours ago, Onyx2 said:

Sadly that's true of The Peter Cushing in Whitstable - although at least the building is being used for *something*. 

Popped to Whitstable on a day trip and needed the loo, a Wetherspoons is always a safe bet. The toilets were upstairs and it's then I twigged they'd been sited in the old projector booths. The bar is where the screen was, and there's an enormous frieze of cinema goers looking at the back of your neck while you order a drink. 

 

I loathe that it's a Wetherspoons, but 100% agree I'm glad it's used for something. It's such a beautiful building with so much history. On a side note Whitstable is lovely, I used to spend a bit of time there as a kid (my Mum's aunt had a caravan a mile or so away when I was young that technically slept 4, but frequently had about 15 various relatives crammed in for holidays) and I always loved the Peter Cushing exhibit at the Whitstable museum.

This reminds me, for years the old Coronet cinema in Holloway Road near where I grew up has been a Spoons for years, but they recently gave it up and it's now going to apparently reopen under new ownership. It's an absolute beauty of a building, so I hope it gets preserved as such. Obviously I'd prefer it was a cinema, but at least it's being kept as something.