VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[Mr_Danger]

I’m Thinking of Ending Things. I won’t pretend  I watched until the end but I did wake up for it. No amount of Jesse Plemons can make this any more watchable. Not for me, Clive.

[Chris B]

On 11/7/2020 at 4:02 PM, Devon Malcolm said:

The Public Enemy, G Men and The Roaring Twenties are all musts if you want more crime stuff. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is really good too.

These are great. There's also Blood on the Sun, which has an incredible fight scene (if you can get past the horrendous yellowface). If you fancy something very different, I'm enormously fond of Yankee Doodle Dandy - which shows him as a decent dancer, in a hoofer kind of way. Also, One Two Three is a fun, fast-speaking comedy from his later years,

[Devon Malcolm]

The Falling (Mubi)

Boring, slightly weird school drama where loads of girls start fainting and it might be witchcraft but I didn't care as it's so slow. Florence Pugh, Maisie Williams and Morfydd Clark all exempt from criticism.

Low Tide (pirate)

Decent little seaside thriller that passes 85 minutes pretty well. Shea Whigham is sadly wasted but it's always nice to see him, although we thankfully see him loads.

Spree (pirate)

'Social media is BAD' film, made by someone who hasn't seen the million Black Mirror episodes on the same subject. David Arquette is funny for the 15 minutes he's in it for.

Mister America (VHS courtesy of The Victorville Film Archives)

TIM HEIDECKER IS A FUCKING MURDERER

Edited November 8, 2020 by Devon Malcolm

[Devon Malcolm]

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (Film 4)

I've said that Andy Samberg is one of the most likeable comedy actors of all time, but is he also now one of the funniest? Yes, yes he is. Almost everything works on a joke level here, the songs are brilliant, and the cameos and soundbites are perfectly done. I always knew there was something dodgy about Taylor Swift too.

[Hannibal Scorch]

I honestly thought Popstar was going to be huge. Didn’t Lonely Island do something on Raw at the time? Seemed to have a lot of buzz before it came out, but it sank without much of an impact in the states and barely got a release here. It’s very much considered a modern comedy classic in this house

[Keith Houchen]

9 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I always knew there was something dodgy about Taylor Swift too

You better watch your fucking mouth. 

[Bellenda Carlisle]

The Devil All The Time 

I didn't know anything about this when I started watching it, not even who was in it, I assumed the whole film would be about Bill Skargard's character so I was surprised when the story kept totally shifting for the first 45 minutes. 

It's like some kind of 50s/60s dark, religious backwoods version of Pulp Fiction with its interconnecting storylines and shit. I thought it was really cool and even though it had so much stuff going on it ended up being pretty tight, it is quite bleak though.

Also I hate Jason Clarke's face

[Bellenda Carlisle]

I watched a double bill of right fun stinkers last night;

Unhinged with Russel Crowe as an angry fat bastard in a car.

The Fanatic with John Travolta as an obsessive fan with a learning disability.

If you only like films that you think are good then there's no point watching these, but if like me you sometimes enjoy stuff for other reasons like it's so stupid or preposterous that you can't believe it then they're both a fun watch.

Russel Crowe is so fat in Unhinged it's unbelievable.

The Fanatic was hilarious, what a weird stupid film. John Travolta is so ridiculous here it's on another level, he plays a guy with an extremely unspecified developmental disability and he definitely went full R word in the exact way Tropic Thunder warned us about. I really can't get over his performance and how stupid the film was at all. He also looks like this in it and the film was literally directed by the singer of Limp Bizkit

 

[wordsfromlee]

Don’t forget that the guy Travolta is stalking is the guy who played Stan in the Eminem video. I wonder if Fred Durst did that on purpose, thinking he was making a super clever remark on the stalker becoming the stalkee, or some bullshit. 

[Onyx2]

38 minutes ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

If you only like films that you think are good then there's no point watching these, but if like me you sometimes enjoy stuff for other reasons like it's so stupid or preposterous that you can't believe it then they're both a fun watch.

Cheap plug.

The Fanatic is utterly bonkers. Did Travolta think he was making an Oscar-worthy piece? A Daniel Day Lewis-style performance? Tax write-off? Completely bananas.

[Scott Malbranque]

I watched Unhinged with the premise that Dan Conner had gone spare, and it was all the more enjoyable for it.

 

[Bellenda Carlisle]

7 minutes ago, Onyx2 said:

Did Travolta think he was making an Oscar-worthy piece? A Daniel Day Lewis-style performance? Tax write-off? Completely bananas.

I'll tell you why he did the film but I'm warning you, the answer is the blackest comedy of 2020

 

[cobra_gordo]

The Wicker Man (Amazon Crime). I've been trying to watch this for the last few days but finally managed to find a stream. Some of the folk music is a bit jarring, because it's folk music, but it's still a fantastically atmospheric film. I checked IMDB half way through because I'd mis-remembered Britt Ekland being in something I'd seen recently and clocked that Edward Woodward was in.....

Hot Fuzz (Amazon Crime). I must have seen this film 50 times, mainly because it's on ITV2 four times a week, and never realised Mr Woodward played Tom "Up to our balls in jugglers" Weaver from the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance until today. I'm willing to get on my soap box and proclaim it a perfect film, every joke and callback is so well thought out and structured and it I never get bored of watching it.

[Devon Malcolm]

Welcome to the Punch (Prime)

One of those British crime films that tries so hard to be American, ending up mostly crap as a result. Peter Mullan was its only redeeming feature, and maybe Andrea Riseborough if you discount her appalling cock-er-nee accent. Not good at all.

[Magnum Milano]

A bunch from the past few days, including finishing my Friday the 13th exploits.

Death on the Tyne (2018)

Weak plot but quite funny, especially Georgie Glen and Doon Mackichan.  A strong cast and an easy way to pass ninety minutes. Not something I could ever see rewatching mind.

Hard Times (1975)

Where it all began for Walter Hill and some good music too, something which becomes a staple of Hill’s films.  James Coburn is superb as the smooth talking Speed.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Telekinetic nonsense dominates but it doesn’t bore like some of the earlier films. The ending puzzled me (was it a dream?) and there is one great kill involving a sleeping bag!

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)

It wasn’t a dream! Despite an evidently bigger budget and finally moving away from Crystal Lake, the longest movie in the franchise isn’t one of the better ones.  Oh, Jason can teleport now too!  (Final rankings - 3, 6, 4, 7, 1, 8, 2, 5)

The Burning (1981)

Good slasher fare, even if it is a blatant Friday the 13th rip-off.  The murders are proper gory as our killer slices, stabs and snips with garden shears. A young Jason Alexander, with hair, stars.

Edited November 13, 2020 by Magnum Milano