VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[johnnyboy]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

The Monkey (cinema)

It's fine. It was always going to be a comparative disappointment after Longlegs because the original story is crap but Perkins does his best with it and it's a good laugh

Completely absurd from about the halfway point, but it was indeed a good laugh.

[Merzbow]

Twin Falls Idaho

The only reason I know this exists as I was looking at the IMDb of a small character from Mulholland Drive, this indie film came out a couple of years before and has some slight Lynch vibes. A very dreamlike tale about a sex worker befriending conjoined twins (who were the writers/directors) and it's done in a surprisingly sweet manner, not much happens and what does is at a glacial pace but I loved it.

[LaGoosh]

12 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

The Protector

The fights in this are some of the most insane, creative, ludicrous and fun I've seen in any martial arts film. Everything else in the film is God fucking awful but...those fights, man. Incredible. 

As an aside, I first saw this on a pirate DVD labelled Ong-Bak 2 so for probably 10 years had no idea that it wasn't actually called that. I've never seen the actual Ong-Bak 2.

[wordsfromlee]

It was called Warrior King over here I think. I haven’t seen it in years but I do remember he fights Nathan Jones and the one shot fight scene up the stairs was brilliant. 

[FLips]

We gave up on Top Gun. Nothing really to do with the quality of the film but never committed to it fully and getting through Tom Cruise's stupid gurning face is difficult to do when you're not invested in it. One to go back to.

Last night instead we had a double bill.

Death Warrant

Gave this one a go under the guise that surely it couldn't be as bad as Lionheart. This one sounds more action compared to Lionheart's dramatic approach so you would think that means less talking and more kicking. This was correct but only just.
Police officer JCVD is put under cover into a high security prison because prisoners there are getting killed en-masse and he needs to get to the bottom of why. While he's in there his nemesis The Sandman is put in and chaos ensues. It's actually a really good film but in spite of JCVD who is dog shit. Like he's really really bad. How did this guy ever get famous?
Everyone else puts in a shift from the guards to the prisoners to the bit part characters, everyone takes it serious and puts on a really good performance but JCVD is shocking and drags the whole thing down single-handedly.
Great performance from Art LeFleur as the bastard warden, which took me by surprise as I only know him as the Tooth Fairy from The Santa Clause films. Patrick Kilpatrick who played a bit part lackey in Under Seige 2 is brilliant here as the psychotic Sandman, a seemingly unkillable nutcase. Robert Guillaume and Abdul Salaam El-Razzac are both standouts though as JCVD's only "friends" in the prison. Like with most these 90s action films, a familiar face shows up as a background part and in this one it's Larry Hankin and Armin Shimerman in a 1-2 combo.

We both got completely took out of it for a while though when during the final stretch of the film, JCVD's handler Amanda is strip searched by the corrupt wardens and it's really grotty and sad, but then JCVD finds this a suitable time to make his moves on her and quite forceably coerce her into having sex. It's really in bad taste and both of us were stunned it was put into the film. Grotty shit.

So yeah, great film completely dragged down by JCVD being in it and JCVD doing what is scarily close to a rape and it being played off as romantic. Stick anyone else in this and it would probably be talked about a lot more.

Cliffhanger

Mountain Rescuer Michael Rooker foolishly takes his inexperienced girlfriend rock climbing up what looks like the biggest most dangerous mountain they could find and predictably get stuck. His teammate Sly Stallone is sent to rescue them but botches the job and Rooker's girlfriend drops a million feet to her death. Years later with the team disbanded they reunite but immediately after a plane heist goes tits up and all the briefcases full of money end up stuck in the mountains and they're lured there and forced to help the theives secure them.

It's pretty decent. When he tries Stallone can actually act and this one is no different. He plays for sympathy quite well. The action is really impressive with a fantastic plane-to-plane heist with an explosive ending, a lot of cool jumps and climbs you would expect from a mountain and some pretty heavy hitting fight scenes.
John Lithgow is a tale of two parts though because on one hand he's a brilliant main villain, a heartless bastard who just kills without question including his own team, and on the other hand he has the worst British accent I've ever heard put to film, which he can't keep up with and randomly drops on and off during the film.

There's a lot of moving parts that keep the suspense interesting. Lithgow's team don't particularly get along with each other, one of them is a turned federal agent who doesn't fit in either, then on the other side there's still drama between Stallone and Rooker because of the previously mentioned dropped girlfriend. You get the feeling that at any one time someone could turn on the other and it keeps things moving at a neat pace.

This film's familiar faces are cockney geezer and Gaz from Call of Duty, Craig Fairbrass, and Gregory Scott Cummins aka Mac's Dad from Always Sunny.

Great film though. Maybe runs a little longer than it needs to but we were never bored during it.

 

[Chest Rockwell]

I love cliffhanger. One of my childhood favourites that we had on video and watched a lot. Haven't seen it in years but your review made me want to watch it again.

[FLips]

Point Break

Might catch some flak for this one. We turned it off after an hour because it was boring us to death.
It's two hours long and the entire first hour was just montages of Keanu Reeves surfing and having a totally radical bodacious time at the beach. Gary Busey was as fantastic as you would expect chewing up the scenery with his big ol' gnashers but the rest of the cast was a dud.
We almost switched off when Anthony Keidis from the RHCP turned up as a surfer thug but we persevered until the part where upon figuring out who the bank robbers were, Gary Busey thought it important to order two meatball subs and completely miss them and Keanu Reeves decided not to shoot the main bad guy because he thinks he's a tubular and gnarly dude.

If you want a film about Keanu Reeves surfing and making mates at the beach this might be one for you, but if you want action and thrills you're better off sticking something else on. Maybe the second half picks up the pace but the first hour isn't worth riding the waves to get to it. This isn't The Bloodline, I'm not here for long term storytelling, give me bank robberies and gunfights please.

Blown Away

If you thought John Lithgow's English accent in Cliffhanger was bad wait until you get a load of this. It's a one-two combo of Irishmen in Boston so nearly everyone in the film has one of those accents and not many, if any of them at all, can actually pull it off. Tommy Lee Jones switches from Irish to Scrooge McDuck intermittently through the film and I'm sure Jeff Bridges tries to do an Irish and Boston accent at different points but gives up on both and just sounds like Jeff Bridges. It's a shocker.

That being said the film is actually pretty decent. Tommy Lee Jones is an IRA bomb-making expert looking for revenge against former ally/brother in law Jeff Bridges who abandoned him and moved to America to live a new life. He spends the films making SAW-style booby trap bombs and picking off members of Bridge's bomb squad.
There are some huge explosions, exciting bomb defusing scenes and some brilliant camera work where they film the bells and whistles inside the bombs and contraptions to show how they work; the best part being when Bridges thinks there's a bomb in his house and it's showing things like ovens and lights ignite and turn on and any of them could be a bomb. Sadly though Jones has just killed his dog and dumped it in the cupboard.

All in all the film isn't a classic or anything, I've no intention of watching it again any time soon, but it's worth a watch for sure.

Edited February 23, 2025 by FLips

[SuperBacon]

18 minutes ago, FLips said:

give me bank robberies and gunfights please.

Might want to watch the rest of the film mate

[FLips]

14 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Might want to watch the rest of the film mate

Haha like I said, it probably does pick up the second half, but I can't imagine the second half is worth watching the first for and we tapped out with no intention of going back.

[Devon Malcolm]

In fairness I didn't like Point Break when I first saw it but I quite like it now. It's nowhere near one of the best 90s action films though.

[LaGoosh]

Yeah Point Break is fun but pretty overrated I'd say.

[gmoney]

40 minutes ago, FLips said:

Point Break

Might catch some flak for this one. We turned it off after an hour because it was boring us to death.
It's two hours long and the entire first hour was just montages of Keanu Reeves surfing and having a totally radical bodacious time at the beach. Gary Busey was as fantastic as you would expect chewing up the scenery with his big ol' gnashers but the rest of the cast was a dud.
We almost switched off when Anthony Keidis from the RHCP turned up as a surfer thug but we persevered until the part where upon figuring out who the bank robbers were, Gary Busey thought it important to order two meatball subs and completely miss them and Keanu Reeves decided not to shoot the main bad guy because he thinks he's a tubular and gnarly dude.

If you want a film about Keanu Reeves surfing and making mates at the beach this might be one for you, but if you want action and thrills you're better off sticking something else on. Maybe the second half picks up the pace but the first hour isn't worth riding the waves to get to it. This isn't The Bloodline, I'm not here for long term storytelling, give me bank robberies and gunfights please.

*Gives pelter*

[davertfnewman]

"Back off Warchild, seriously."

I watched Point Break for the first time recently and enjoyed it. Same with Road House. Just fun, dumb movies. If I was a young man back then, I'd want to look like Keanu or Swayze but not act or be like them. Just cool images and looks with not a lot of depth behind them.

[johnnyboy]

On 2/21/2025 at 6:30 PM, Devon Malcolm said:

Heart Eyes (cinema)

Decent comedy-slasher that forgets its sense of humour near the end. The middle section is great though and there are some genuinely funny moments, just a shame the last 20 minutes are crap. Really like Olivia Holt though, hope she does some more of this sort of thing.

Had great fun with this, but I wish I'd watched it on actual Valentine's.

[Mr_Danger]

I’m pretty sure @FLips has been through my taped off tv video film collection this past week. If Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot or Deadly Pursuit pops up next you’ll have a full house.