VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[LaGoosh]

True Romance is great and also the only Tarantino script (except maybe Dusk Till Dawn) to have a proper studio edit. I've read the original script and it's quite different (and worse), with much longer scenes, jumping back and forth in time and a different ending. It's intriguing to think what his other scripts might have looked like if they were taken out of his hands like True Romance was.

[Devon Malcolm]

True Romance is the only Tony Scott film I actively hate. I don't really regard it as one of his, usually, as it's so obviously more Tarantino than Scott.

[Lorne Malvo]

Orion And The Dark - I really enjoyed the first 20 minutes of this, then it descends into sub-Inside Out meets 40 Winks on the PS1 and just becomes a bit of a mess. Noticed during the credits it was written by Charlie Kaufman which makes sense as it's overly ambitious and tries to be too clever, like most of his output.

The Greatest Night In Pop - Pretty much a fluff piece about We Are The World, but it's hard not to enjoy yourself when there's that many iconic personalities on screen. Personal favourite part was all these larger than life cool personalities vibing and having fun then it cuts to Dan Aykroyd who looks as out of place as a nun at an orgy. Good fun.

American Fiction - I liked this, but was still quite disappointed by it at the same time. I expected a slyly funny satire about white attitudes to black media/literature, but while there is some of that, it's pretty much a backdrop to family drama and budding romance which just didn't interest me as much. It fumbles the ending too. Still quite funny though.

The End We Start From - Really tense, absorbing naturalistic survival drama. Jodie Comer on top form as always. This really worked for me, but I am a sucker for the survival genre.

I also caught a screening of It Happened One Night which was just lovely and funny as fuck.

[Devon Malcolm]

Migration (cinema)

Like almost all Illumination's stuff, absolutely fine and harmless. Although I preferred the Minions short (Mooned) beforehand.

American Fiction

Completely agree with @Lorne Malvo - it's fine and sometimes very funny, and Sterling K. Brown especially is as good as you've heard. But it's two films that never gel into one thing and it suffers badly at times because of it. All the stuff surrounding judging the literary prize was hilarious though.

Weekend (2011) (Mubi)

Andrew Haigh is deservedly in the headlines for All of Us Strangers and if you liked that sad, gay romantic drama then you'll like this one, too. Really self-contained and well told, and also one to upset your homophobic family members with.

Airheads

A rare comedy film with a big cast where everyone gets their funny moments. Laughed loads, will definitely watch it again and again until I know all the lines.

Billy Madison

Adam Sandler in Airheads might have had a chance with Pete Sampras' hot wife but not in this. Still funny, though, especially Chris Farley's bus driver.

In the Soup

Steve Buscemi did a run of low budget indie comedy-dramas in the 90s in-between the Tarantino stuff and they were always excellent but this is perhaps the best of them. Extremely funny, very Jarmusch-esque, with a particularly amusing Stanley Tucci cameo. Trigger warning - he has hair, though.

Bad Samaritan (Horror Channel or whatever it's called this week)

Can't help but feel David Tennant has mostly wasted his career on fucking Doctor Who and piddle like this. A good idea but far too long and slow and Tennant is miscast.

The Scarlet and the Black (Great! Movies)

TV movie from the mid-80s about a real life Vatican monsignor who sheltered escapees from the Nazis during the war. You do, unfortunately, have to put up with Gregory Peck's Oirish accent for over two hours but otherwise this is very good and well paced and a different story from WWII that still hasn't been talked about that much.

Ship of Fools

One of those huge cast, big budget melodramas that Hollywood used to put out for fun and that people actually used to go and see. You don't get them anymore and you should because they were often great if you just liked watching really good acting. As is the case here, even if it's not the strongest example of the type.

The Beekeeper

It leaked, so of course I watched it again.

[cobra_gordo]

Working from hone and stressed so wanted to have something familiar and brainless on in the background. Wanted to watch Wayne's World and couldn't get a stream but Prime suggested Little Nicky. Jesus fucking Christ it hasn't aged well. I loved it when it came out because I was a 15 year old metalhead and I can see why I liked it at the time but now, I'm not so keen. Highlights are John Lovitz, Rodney Dangerfield's voice and the one second reference to Chris Farley at the end. And the soundtrack. The soundtrack is ace.

 Rat Race was up next on suggesteds and in hindsight I probably should have binned Little Nicky off and watched this twice instead. Complete silliness from start to finish, knows exactly what it is and is good fun as a result. Also more John Lovitz being brilliant.

[CAREBEAR LUVVA]

Saw Neil Breen's latest "effort" this afternoon. "Astonishing" is the only word for it. The entire thing has been done with a green screen (or Breen screen), and looks absolutely terrible. The special effects are atrocious, there's a CGI tiger that looks like it was lifted from a PS2 game, the plot is so muddled that it's impossible to follow (countless re-used scenes and lines of dialogue make things even more confusing), and I couldn't even tell you what the resolution was at the end even though I only saw the sodding film less than half an hour ago. I love shit like this so I can't say I didn't enjoy it, and honestly I did find it to be the most watchable out of any of his previous films, but in terms of being a "good" film you'd be hard pushed to even give it one star. Astonishing.

 

[Merzbow]

I've never actually watched one of his films but I love when RLM cover them, I'll wait for their Best of the Worst special.

[Devon Malcolm]

Each to their own and all that because I would never watch Breen's stuff. But I just don't buy for one second that he's not making these films to be deliberately shit. Nobody has that little self-awareness.

[waters44]

Past Lives is now on Netflix. I’ve heard it’s alright 

[johnnyboy]

9 hours ago, waters44 said:

Past Lives is now on Netflix. I’ve heard it’s alright 

Just have the tissues handy (for tears, not wanking).

[Dead Mike]

Escape From Pretoria (Prime) - Daniel Radcliffe stars in a true story about anti apartheid activists locked up in a South African prison and their attempt to escape. This well exceeded my expectations, mainly due to my not knowing the actual story & thus having no idea if they lived, died, escaped or got caught. Also, Radcliffe is very good (despite his accent wobbling a couple of time) and there's some genuinely tense set pieces. It's only 1hr 40mins too so whizzes along. Recommended.

[cobra_gordo]

I watched John Wick For Cunts again earlier. It absolutely breezes by on a second viewing, Statham kicking the shit out of scumbags is even more entertaining when you know what's coming. Still my film of the year.

[Devon Malcolm]

52 minutes ago, cobra_gordo said:

I watched John Wick For Cunts again earlier. It absolutely breezes by on a second viewing, Statham kicking the shit out of scumbags is even more entertaining when you know what's coming. Still my film of the year.

It's made $140 million at the box office so we should get 2 Cunty 4 John Wick at some point.

[Hannibal Scorch]

After seeing Madame Web this week I definitely apologised to John Wick for Cunts for being quite so harsh. I still don’t think it’s great (although I will say in terms of villains and the reason why he takes revenge on them is fucking great), but Madame Web is a complete hate crime against cinema, at least this tried to be competent. 

[Merzbow]

Mustang: I'm probably not the target audience for this but it's a truly beautiful directorial debut about 5 young sisters being brought up in a super conservative remote village in Turkey. It often feels very, very real and it's just so sad, admittedly I'm viewing it with Western ultra liberal eyes. One I'd definitely stick on that Mubi watchlist.

Blade Runner 2049: Still the best sci fi of the last decade not named Prospect. Gonna rewatch Dune while I'm at it, too. Long live Denis.