VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[Mr_Danger]

My Mrs was trying to get me to throw my dvd’s out the other day and I was reluctantly set to agree but then Flips kept posting films I’ve got and haven’t seen in years so and I’ve decided she can fuck off. They stay! (In the attic).

[FLips]

15 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said:

My Mrs was trying to get me to throw my dvd’s out the other day and I was reluctantly set to agree but then Flips kept posting films I’ve got and haven’t seen in years so and I’ve decided she can fuck off. They stay! (In the attic).

You’ll thank me when you go to watch one of them digitally and you need to pay twice as much as the DVD costs to rent it until they decide to snatch it back.

[Devon Malcolm]

Yeah, Desperado and True Romance are shit but otherwise that's a quality selection. Two of Jackie Chan's more underrated films in there, too.

[LaGoosh]

Desperado has a great opening 15 minutes but then is just absolutely boring as fuck until it finishes.

[Hannibal Scorch]

5 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

Snow White

Maybe I was in a good mood, maybe it was because I had zero expectations about it, but I loved this.  I might even have to stick the soundtrack on later.

  Hide contents

Grumpy looks like he was modelled on Tommy Lee Jones.

 

Yep it’s not as bad as they’d have you believe 

[LaGoosh]

Joint Security Area - had never heard of this until a few days ago, turns out it's an absolute cracker. Korean thriller from Park Chan-Wook, has a brilliant and inspired tonal shift for the second act which I never saw coming but makes the third act all the more tragic and tense. Highly recommend this.

[Mr_Danger]

54 minutes ago, FLips said:

You’ll thank me when you go to watch one of them digitally and you need to pay twice as much as the DVD costs to rent it until they decide to snatch it back.

She did raise an interesting point when I said I might want to watch them and she replied “On what we don’t have a dvd player!” 

[tiger_rick]

Off to pictures later to watch the penguin film with Steve Coogan in it. The power of the trailer. Went to pictures a couple of times a few months ago and it was trailed both times and looked amazing. I always fall for the trailers. Fully expecting to have seen all the best bits already.

[Devon Malcolm]

My mum said "Ooh I like the look of that" and she's liked about 6 films ever and her favourite is The Bodyguard.

Enjoy!

[johnnyboy]

Minecraft

Throwing popcorn everywhere wasn't cool.  They'll never let me back in.

Absolute nonsense, but quite fun with the caveat that your enjoyment, or not, will be entirely based on how much you can stomach Jack Black's schtick.  If Jack Black turned all the way up spouting nonsense sounds like fun then have away at it.

Chicken Jockey...

Spoiler

Popcorn throwing aside, the most sickening part is that the yoofs will probably have associated the frog splash that the Jockey did with Logan Paul

 

Edited April 17, 2025 by johnnyboy

[FLips]

The Godfather Part II
A tale of two halves for us. We loved the Robert De Niro flashback bits but didn't think a whole lot of Pacino's performance. As a whole though I don't think the chop and change back and forward editing works though and would have preferred it either starting with De Niro and transitioning to Pacino, or fleshed out more so there's longer sections that flop back and forth less.

This one has a much darker tone than the original, focusing on Michael Corleone's descent into paranoia as those around him try and have him killed, and he slowly loses grip on both his personal family and his professional one.
I didn't think a whole lot of Kay as a character in the first one and wasn't exactly blown away to see her return in this one but she eventually ends up stealing the show. Her admission of an abortion scene is maybe the best in the whole film.

The stuff with Fredo was a bit much considering, but by this point Michael was in way too deep and everything was about revenge and violence. I do like that Michael shows regret in the end of this one and throughout Part III about killing Fredo.
Similarly to his wedding in the first one, some poor editing of timeframes here as his Mam just randomly gets sick and dies with no fanfare.

It was decent but we both preferred the first one. This one got a little long in the tooth by the end and Pacino's performance we felt was the least interesting of the three films. Junior Soprano though!

The Godfather Part III
I think whereas maybe the second one gets put on a pedestal, this one gets some unnecessary flak. Sofia Coppolla wasn't exactly De Niro but she wasn't as awful as what's made out. Thrilled to see Eli Wallach turn up as well after recently watching the Dollars Trilogy. Sad to see Tom Hagen is gone.

With the first one being about Michael's arrival into a glorified version of the Mafia, and the second one being about him crashing back down to earth with all the violence, then the third one is a great way to cap the story off, with him weakened, alienated from his family and with barely anything left just trying to move on and live with the horrors he created.

I know we're in a minority here but we enjoyed this one more than Part II. The vatican stuff was a bit dull, and the incestuous cousin stuff was rancid, but overall it was easier to follow and Pacino gave us more to sink our teeth into. He did well as the aged, worn out, diabetic almost sympathetic character trying to keep the remnants of his family together, and Diane Keaton again had a brilliant go in this with her "I dread you" and "you are my horror".

I think like with most Mafia/Gang stuff like Sopranos, like Goodfellas, the downfall and the tension is always more interesting than the bit where they're just doing Mafia stuff. The final scene with Mary being gunned down on the stairs of the opera was gutwrenching, and Pacino and Keaton really pulled at the heartstrings there. The final cut to Michael, old and reminiscing in Sicily, dropping the orange I think was a great way to show that while he got to go in peace, he lost everything on the way.

So yeah, don't be too mad at me, but our household agreed order is 132. None of them are bad and we'd watch them all again no problem.

 

Edited April 18, 2025 by FLips

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

So yeah, don't be too mad at me, but our household agreed order is 132.

[johnnyboy]

Babe

Babe is 30 years old and back in the cinema this weekend.  What a delight, and I'd never picked up Lunchlady Doris' voice before.

[Merzbow]

Novocaine, it's corny and dumb as hell and the action could have been quite a bit better but it's good anti-fascist fun, I'm always down for Jack Quaid fucking up a Nazi. Speaking off, I could be a tad jealous that he's worked next to Sophie Thatcher and now Amber Midthunder.. which celeb crush is next?

[FLips]

Once Upon a Time in The West (Again)
I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since I watched it the other day so I made my wife watch it as she wasn't with me when I saw it the first time. She said "meh it was just the same as any Western" but what does she even know, she preferred Godfather Part III to Part II *cough*

I know some of it will be recency bias, but to hell with it, it's my favourite movie of all time. It's even better on second viewing, picking up all the subtleties and bits I missed on first viewing; the most obvious one now being Cheyenne hiding a gunshot wound when he returns to Sweetwater.

The music is some of the best I've heard in film, and though I don't know if this film invented it, popularised it, just used it or whatever it may be, but each character having their own theme music I adore, and it reminds me of things like Star Wars or even the Final Fantasy games. They're all brilliant of course but Harmonica's theme and the reveal of it's origins still give me chills, and the train finally making it to Sweetwater still had me welling up a bit on second viewing.

I appreciated Jill and Cheyenne even moreso on this viewing too. The film is just as much about Jill McBain as it is Harmonica and there's more than just a little bit of Han Solo in Cheyenne. A loveable rogue.

The stuntman's neck bump got a verbal reaction out of my wife too. Never gets easier to watch.

But yeah 10/10 I can't fault it at all. Never in my life have I watched a 3 hour movie, not stopped thinking about it for days and then watched it again. I must have recommended it to half a dozen people in between too.

 

Edited April 18, 2025 by FLips