VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[Mr_Danger]

LongLegs 

Theres a hell of a lot to love about this film, just not the final act unfortunately. I don’t think I’ve be ever been so unsettled by sound in a film. Feels a bit like a mash up between David Fincher and Stephen King by the end. I’d still highly recommend it though for how great it’s shot and that bastard shrill sound design.

[organizedkaos]

Yeah it's incredibly well shot and sound designed (sounded?) - directors ability to draw your attention to things that may or may not be of note keeps you constantly on your toes. Felt a bit like a film of the Diner scene in Mulholland Dr.

However it's super derivative, the story is very by the numbers - it's basically just a lesser Silence of the Lambs. Nic Cage is doing a bit too much for the tone of everything else. The mechanism involved how the murders go down is silly.  There's some nice ideas in the plot but they're generally applied too thinly. These things effect that back stretch more and as you said that's where it all really feels like it's fallen off a cliff.

[Lorne Malvo]

Not watched hardly anything the past few months, owing to a combination of the Euros, Wimbledon, and my laptop dying. Trying to catch up on things I've missed - but now the Olympics has started it looks like movie-watching is on pause again!

Love Lies Bleeding - Wasn't that excited about this - I liked Saint Maud but don't think it quite warranted the fuss it got upon release. However, I really enjoyed this. Great performances all round, it kept me guessing and even more surprisingly it completely nails the ending (which seems to be a rarity lately). There's a few little stylistic quirks I could've personally done without but nothing egregious enough to hold against it. Great film.

The Fall Guy - It's a bit of a ropey plot and the script could've been a lot tighter but I still thought it was a lot of fun, mainly owing to the chemistry between Gosling and Blunt. Winston Duke is great too. Wasn't quite the love letter to stuntmen I wanted but I wouldn't begrude a sequel (although that doesn't look likely).

Also rewatched a few things; The Holdovers was even better on a second watch and I'll be very, very surprised if anything knocks it off my number 1 spot this year. Madame Web (yes, I have now watched this twice - don't ask) was still shit but not quite as shit on a rewatch and the utter mangling of the villain is quite funny.

Lastly, I went to the cinema to watch Forrest Gump. Listen, you can snigger all you want but I fucking love it. It's so tangled up with nostalgia and memories for me that it's impossible to look at objectively. It was my first time properly watching it in about 12/13 years and as soon as that opening theme starts I was just overcome with emotion - I think I underestimated how big a role it played in my life growing up.

[BomberPat]

Spaceballs

Wanted something daft and mindless to put on last night, first time watching it since I was a kid. A lot of it is obvious jokes, but like any Mel Brooks film, there's enough to like and enough good performances to elevate it above some of the worse jokes. A good time.

Bullet Train

My other half suggested we watch it, I knew nothing about it. I absolutely loved it. Clever, funny, inventive, kept me guessing, and even though the plot started to drag a bit by the end, still a great action film. Cut this to around 90-95 minutes and it would be incredible.

Jaws 3

At least it wasn't Jaws 4.

Edited July 29 by BomberPat

[FLips]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The original 1990 one. It's really not that bad to be honest. The costumes are decent for the time and the plot matches up fairly ok with the cartoon except the Foot clan are disgruntled teenagers and not robots. It's all a bit goofy but the fight scenes are fun considering it's four blokes in big cumbersome rubber suits. Whether it's intentional or not they really nail the absurdity of it and we found ourselves laughing at the turtles just saying and doing random things, like when Raph is doing karate on the rooftop like Mac in The Nightman Cometh.

The casting between the three films is an absolute nightmare but this one has the best of the bunch. The April in this one is as close as it gets for looks and character compared to the other films we watched, and the Turtles voice actors was the least jarring. Casey Jones is a good addition too even if he gets a little rapey at times.

Between the three of us we all agreed we were surprised by it and would happily watch it again.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of The Ooze

So this one has a different April O'Neil, Casey Jones is unexplainably absent, and the voice actors for some but not all of the Turtles are different. Raph now has a ludicrously thick New Yorker accent and sounds like a parody.

The film is worse in almost every way. The tone is much lighter, the Turtles don't use their weapons hardly if at all, the cast is worse all round and the ending is abrupt. They can't even get Bebop and Rocksteady in and instead we have Tokka and Rahzar, a turtle and a wolf with baby brains and again the puppeteering is fairly decent on them for the time, as characters they're duds. April isn't anywhere near as great as the first incarnation and unfortunately we're stuck with this one for the third film too.

The end fight is brutally bad, it's what feels like 5 minutes of Vanilla Ice doing the Ninja Rap and then they one-shot Shredder through a window by blasting him with a guitar riff. The long-awaited (by us at least) appearance of Big Sexy Kevin Nash as the Super Shredder is prematurely spaffed up the walls when he appeares and crushes himself to death with no fight with the Turtles, then the film just ends. Yikes.

We agreed this one was much worse, but if we were watching this at the time it came out when we were Turtles loving kids, we'd have probably enjoyed it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

My wife said she liked this one as a kid but the rest of us hadn't seen it before. She boldly said going into the marathon it was going to be the best one and she was unfortunately dead wrong.

Same April as Turtles 2, Casey Jones is back from Turtles 1 and has a Japan era counterpart in a dual-role for the actor, Corey Feldman is back as Donatello from Turtles 1 but the Raph changes for the third time. I believe Mikey, Leonardo and Splinter are the same through all three, but I could be wrong as it's all over the place.

This one sees the Turtles inexplicably swap places with some Japanese blokes from the 1600s because April bought a dodgy time travelling scepter from a car boot sale. The Turtles go back to fight a war with the British invaders and protect a village where they are hailed as Kappa Demons, and the Japanese blokes have to hang about with Casey Jones in the 1990s watching Hockey and eating Pizza.

It's dog rough, and while the climactic end fight is better than the Vanilla Ice music video that 2 had, it doesn't save an hour of worthless fannying on. As bad as some bits of the other Turtles films were at times, they at least felt like Turtles films and had an authentic feel to them, with the New York setting, the villains from the TV show and so on. This one doesn't even have a recognisable main bad guy, though he does have the funniest falling death this side of Robocop, where they can't be arsed doing a splash effect as he hits the water so they just make him vanish with no splash.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Critically probably the best reviewed of the films, but call it Turtle fatigue or whatever you want but for various reasons spread between the three of us we tapped out and turned it off after half an hour.
Between us we were mixed on the art style, some liked it and some really didn't, myself being in the latter camp. I think it looks cheap. It's the same reason I haven't bothered with the Spiderverse films despite them apparently being decent.
We weren't blown away by some of the characters, especially Donatello and April who while I'm sure work in the context of the film, weren't for us. I think Ayo Edebiri has played the same character or close to in all three films I've seen her in recently and I'm over her, and Donatello sounding like a toddler was off-putting when in all the other iterations I've seen of the Turtles he's the same as the others. The vibe of the film wasn't hooking us either, though we feel it wasn't meant to. We wanted proper 1990s vibes and instead we got the Turtles sneaking out to watch Adele concerts.
My mate summed it up better than I could when he said this film was made for kids today and not us when we were kids. "Skibidi Turtles" he called it.

Between the films we were playing through Shredder's Revenge which is a blast, especially 3 players. We ordered pizza as well, for a proper authentic Turtles Day. Good fun, even if we only really enjoyed 1.5/4 films. The TV series is still the best. Cowabunga.

 

[LaGoosh]

13 minutes ago, FLips said:

The original 1990 one. It's really not that bad to be honest.

On the contrary, I'd say it's a fucking great film. Beautifully shot, good jokes and proper storytelling with actual emotional stakes. I'd argue it's one of if not the best kids film ever made.

The scene where it cuts back and forth between the turtles goofing around to Raphael being essentially beaten to death is brilliant dark comedy. 

I haven't seen the third one for years, in my memory the villain looks like Rik Mayal. Is that right?

Edited July 29 by LaGoosh

[FLips]

6 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

On the contrary, I'd say it's a fucking great film. Beautifully shot, good jokes and proper storytelling with actual emotional stakes. I'd argue it's one of if not the best kids film ever made.

The scene where it cuts back and forth between the turtles goofing around to Raphael being essentially beaten to death is brilliant dark comedy. 

I haven't seen the third one for years, in my memory the villain looks like Rik Mayal. Is that right?

Yeah you're not far off to be honest, he has a bit of the Mayalls about him. Actor Stuart Wilson, he's been in all sorts. He's the best thing about the whole film by a mile.

[Hannibal Scorch]

I was rooting for you @FLips until Turtle Mayhem. The disappointment in you turning it off after 30 minutes and then critiquing the Art style of Spiderverse…. It’s like chatting to a beautiful woman and then finding out she’s a Tory. Heartbroken.

[Devon Malcolm]

3 hours ago, FLips said:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Critically probably the best reviewed of the films, but call it Turtle fatigue or whatever you want but for various reasons spread between the three of us we tapped out and turned it off after half an hour.
Between us we were mixed on the art style, some liked it and some really didn't, myself being in the latter camp. I think it looks cheap. It's the same reason I haven't bothered with the Spiderverse films despite them apparently being decent.

It's too hot to be dealing with this or even requesting the return of downvotes. Booooooo.

[FLips]

2 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

It's too hot to be dealing with this or even requesting the return of downvotes. Booooooo.

I know, I know, I'm sorry. It might be one I go back to when I haven't watched three other Turtles films back to back on the same day.

EDIT: But the plan for Turtle Day 2 is the Michael Bay films, so pray for me.

Edited July 29 by FLips

[Devon Malcolm]

55 minutes ago, FLips said:

I know, I know, I'm sorry. It might be one I go back to when I haven't watched three other Turtles films back to back on the same day.

EDIT: But the plan for Turtle Day 2 is the Michael Bay films, so pray for me.

In fairness, although I really liked Mutant Mayhem and love the Spider-Verse films, the animation is unusual and took me a bit of time to get used to.

I'd be interested by what you mght make of The Mitchells vs the Machines, a film I also love but also has a distinct animation style.

Edited July 29 by Devon Malcolm

[Mr_Danger]

The Mitchells vs The Machines is great. We watched it again the other week and it’s the perfect family comedy. Has a lot of the humour I loved in Malcolm in the Middle and such where no matter how much they are at eachother they always pull together when anything outside the family threatens them. The style isn’t as jarring as Spiderverse or Mutants Mayhem (I really enjoyed the visual aspect of both) so would be a good onboarding for that type of animation.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Had a bad day so put on Crazy Stupid Love.

Yeah, I didn't mind it. I'd watch it again, possibly.

[Hannibal Scorch]

I know it’s theatre, but after the recent Jaws talk, thought I’d mention The Shark is Broken is going on tour next year and Robert Shaws son is still playing his Dad in it. https://thesharkisbroken.com

[cobra_gordo]

3 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I know it’s theatre, but after the recent Jaws talk, thought I’d mention The Shark is Broken is going on tour next year and Robert Shaws son is still playing his Dad in it. https://thesharkisbroken.com

I went to see it in it's last few days of the London run and it is INCREDIBLE. Ian Shaw is uncanny as his dad, met him after the show and he seemed genuinely dumbstruck by how people were reacting to the show. The content is pretty hard-hitting in places but it's funny, plenty of references for Jaws nerds and the highlight is the greatest monologue in cinema. No, not the one from Independance Day.