VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[Devon Malcolm]

3 hours ago, BomberPat said:

Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning

This one came up on our film watchalong night, and I was excited for it - when it first came out, I was writing for a music website, and also ended up as their go-to guy to review dodgy straight-to-DVD action movies; the guy who got me the gig was an old mate who knew I was into wrestling, so when a film called The Package came out starring Steve Austin and Dolph Lundgren, he offered me a choice to interview old Stone Cold about it. Austin ended up pulling out of the interview, so I just got a review copy instead, and they found my review funny, so just kept sending similar stuff my way.

This one, though, took me by surprise. The plot is kind of interesting, it turns the concept of the original film on its head and does interesting things with it, and Van Damme is the villain rather than the hero, and is pretty chilling in that role. All good stuff, and I was looking forward to seeing it again.


I had misremembered a lot about this film, as it turns out. It's still good, but the big plot twist that I had remembered unfolding in one way actually happens completely differently. It is insanely violent and bleak, and is basically just a series of grim fight scenes taped together into a movie, with a completely bonkers plot tagged on top. Andrei Arlovski is in it, just fucking people up constantly. It's horrible. But still really good, and a genuinely interesting direction to take what had been a middling action franchise.

I only recently got round to John Hyams' two Universal Soldier films after years of people telling me they were amazing and for a change they weren't wrong. Hyams is awesome, he's building up a portfolio that his dad must be proud of.

[FLips]

Nightmare on Elm Street 2

Not as good as the first one, or the third one (more on that in a sec). There's some creative stuff in it like Freddy chest-bursting his whole body out of one guy to kill another guy in his dream but the pacing is pretty dull and Jesse is nowhere near as good of a protagonist as Nancy because he spends the whole film crying.

Bits I liked

• Lass on the bus over-confidently exclaiming they're all safe only for Freddy's hand to blast through her chest and cut to a dandy Bing Crosby song
• The parents pull through again! This time Jesse's oblivious Dad only interested in getting a good deal on the murder house.
• Freddy possesses a pair of budgies and makes one explode. Bizarre.
• Jesse does a dance and twerks his drawers closed. What homoerotic undertones?
• Fu Man Chew cereal got a big laugh out of me. As did the full on Coca Cola product placement

Other than that it was pretty underwhelming. That pool party could have been a massacre but it went on forever and was a bit of a wet fart. Jesse's girlfriend is the spitting image of Meryl Streep. I'd watch it again because it wasn't bad but between 1 and 3 it's kind of like having a sandwich with really fresh bread but a bland filling.

Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors

All is right again, Nancy is back!

Despite it being the goofiest of the three films so far, it features the gnarliest kill when Freddy puppeteers a guy off a building by his tendons. It was just on the border of being too much for me when he was getting walked through the halls but I braved on.

This image was brilliant though and worth the gore to get there

Very watchable with some fun kills and funky effects. A much stronger cast than Elm Street 2 carried it start to finish. Lawrence Fishburne and Patricia Arquette!

Bits I liked

• Nancy is back, and her Dad! But sadly not her Mum who we last saw as a skeleton getting slowly lowered into a disco bed and being "hoovered" through a door.
• Speaking of skeletons, Argonaut Freddy was a blast, loved it!
• Welcome to Prime Time BITCH!
• The scene with Freddy pulling everyone into mirrors was really well done. This film as a whole seems to have went all out on the creativity and special effects

My only negatives with this one were that Nancy died and by falling for the oldest trick in the book! She was a great hero and I would have loved the films to be about her just as much as Freddy.
It veered a little bit into cliched territory with the religious undertones and the spooky nuns and the insane asylum.
Also I got robbed of an extra Dokken song when our version didn't open with "Into the Fire" which was mentioned in the credits and had me confused until I looked it up.

I might end up watching the remaining ones at some point but my wife is insistent I watch Scream next as that's one of her favourites and I get the feeling she's using it as an entryway into getting me to watch Cabin in the Woods.

So far though my rankings are

Films 1, 3, 2
Ending Song 1, 3, 2
 

[FLips]

Scream

Not my cup of tea. Wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be and a lot of the meta stuff was completely lost on me.
The last 20-30 minutes were ok but I found the rest of the film a pretty bleak affair with a mostly annoying cast, Shaggy especially so.

I think slashers that aren’t played for laughs and are mostly just screaming women being horribly butchered aren’t my style. Won’t bother with the sequels.

Edited October 11 by FLips

[Devon Malcolm]

2 minutes ago, FLips said:

Scream

Not my cup of tea. Wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be and a lot of the meta stuff was completey lost on me.
The last 20-30 minutes were ok but I found the rest of the film a pretty bleak affair with a mostly annoying cast, Shaggy especially so.

I think slashers that aren’t played for laughs and are mostly just screaming women being horribly butchered aren’t my style. Won’t bother with the sequels.

Good lad. Bad film.

[Onyx2]

14 hours ago, FLips said:

Won’t bother with the sequels

Whether you liked Scream or not this is the right choice. I like the original but the drop off for the other seventeen or whatever there is now is severe. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 hour ago, Onyx2 said:

Whether you liked Scream or not this is the right choice. I like the original but the drop off for the other seventeen or whatever there is now is severe. 

I actually thought 5 was quite good, but the rest are pretty poor. The first was definitely a product of its time.

[Gus Mears]

Got a chance to watch the original, silent version of Phantom of the Opera last weekend in the local cathedral. It was with a live, improvised, church organ accompaniment which was a really cool and unique way to watch. Good film as well! The Phantom's makeup still looks scary even now.

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

11 hours ago, Gus Mears said:

Got a chance to watch the original, silent version of Phantom of the Opera last weekend in the local cathedral. It was with a live, improvised, church organ accompaniment which was a really cool and unique way to watch. Good film as well! The Phantom's makeup still looks scary even now.

Definitive version for me, hate how it’s become known for being a musical in the last 3/4 decades

[SaitoRyo]

Trouble Bound

All the talk of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors reminded me what a massive crush I had on Patricia Arquette, so I decided to check out this crime/neo-noir film from '93 (also starring Michael Madsen). 

I enjoyed it, as it was an easy watch and the two leads are good and had decent chemistry. It's very typical of this sort of thing, with a plot revolving around a road trip, a big score and low-level mobsters. You know exactly where it's going to go, but you don't mind going along for the ride.

Did I mention I had a big crush on Patricia Arquette? Turns out I still do. Oops. 

Kansas

Another one where there was something missing that kept it merely 'decent', but the two leads powered it along and made it interesting. 

Matt Dillon and Andrew McCarthy bump into each other while riding the rails, with Dillon soon roping his unwitting new friend into a bank robbery in a small Kansas town. From there, their journeys take very different paths and, inevitably, cross a little later on as McCarthy is trying to live a decent life in this place he's ended up (while trying to shag the farmer's daughter).

A good look at 80s small-town America and a solid 3/5 film. Dillon is really good in it.

[Gus Mears]

8 hours ago, RIDDUM_N_STYLE said:

Definitive version for me, hate how it’s become known for being a musical in the last 3/4 decades

That's been my exposure to it as well. Being dragged to that godawful early 2000's film with the equally godawful Gerard Butler starring in it.

Watched Bad Lieutenant on ITVX last night and really enjoyed it. Thought Harvey Keitel was superb and I thought the Catholic redemption arc within it worked well. It is gratuitous but it's meant to be. Think my favourite aspect was how wobbly the camera work gets at parts when the main character is particularly high/enraged - it's subtle, they aren't wanging the camera about, but there's just a little shaking, or the focus is a bit off.

[Merzbow]

So... Red Rooms, a film that manages to capture the worst of the dark web without being either gratuitously violent (it doesn't rely on gore at all) or corny and leads you down a slow psychological road and nails the ending. I'm gutted I didn't check this out last month in the local indie cinema but paid up the money to rent it on YouTube instead, a definite contender for Merzbow's fucked up film of the year.

[Chris B]

4 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

So... Red Rooms, a film that manages to capture the worst of the dark web without being either gratuitously violent (it doesn't rely on gore at all) or corny and leads you down a slow psychological road and nails the ending. I'm gutted I didn't check this out last month in the local indie cinema but paid up the money to rent it on YouTube instead, a definite contender for Merzbow's fucked up film of the year.

One of my favourite films of the year. I'd heard someone on twitter describe it as 'the most evil movie they'd ever seen' (as a compliment), and it paid off for me. It's as dark and unpleasant a film as I've ever seen, but never because of what you see - it's all about the parasocial weirdness. Absolutely loved it.

[Merzbow]

Yeah it's the restraint that most directors wouldn't have that makes it all the more effective, great soundtrack too from choosing both Ada Rook and Uboa to the score created for it, that one scene with the Lingua Ignota inspired piece raised the hairs on my neck.

[Devon Malcolm]

I was disappointed by Red Rooms, mostly with the second half when it became completely ludicrous. Still enjoyed it overall, though, but not as much as I might have done.

[Dr. Alan Grant]

Kung Fu Panda - needs more James Hong, less Jack Black. 3/5

Zombieland - briefly gave me the urge to eat a Twinkie, but I imagine they would be incredibly disappointing. And I don’t want to sully the good name of Woody Harrelson. It’s not his fault. No Twinkies for me. 4/5

Joker: Folie à Deux (first watch) - not the utter disaster that I was expecting based on reviews. I’ll stick with A Star Is Born to meet my Lady Gaga cinema needs. 2/5

Ponyo - not one of my favourite Ghibli films, but still charming. 3/5

Carrie (original) - excellent film. The tension of the prom scene is still unbearable. I might give the remake a go if I’m feeling brave. 4/5

25th Hour - is it too much to ask that Barry Pepper be in every film? A fantastic score in this, the main theme in particular. 5/5

Rear Window - Grace Kelly’s entrance is surely one of the greatest in cinema. Lethal face card, as the young un’s say. And one for the phrases I want to see retired thread. 4/5

Notting Hill (first watch) - loved it. Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts at their most Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. A wonderful supporting cast too. I think I may love Gina McKee. 4/5