VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[davertfnewman]

Just curious, how many of us found out about it first through Terry Funk using the Harmonica theme in '89?

I was shocked to find out that Henry Fonda was in his sixties when he made the film recently too.

[Devon Malcolm]

A Minecraft Movie (cinema)

Completely unambitious but fairly watchable. Jack Black does a couple of songs, Jennifer Coolidge tries to fuck a Minecraft lad, the usual thing.

Drop (cinema)

Can't emphasise enough how much we need more low-to-mid budget thrillers like this back in the cinemas. It's been good to see a few of them around this year. Does one job and does it well and isn't reliant on twists. Lots of fun.

Death of a Unicorn (cinema)

I mean, this should be much better than it is considering the cast and the premise. Lots of lazy open goal satire and not enough gore. Jessica Hynes plays a bodyguard and NoHo Hank plays a butler as the two highlights.

Love Hurts

Not disastrous but just not very good either. I just spent the whole time making goo-goo eyes at Lio Tipton. Marshawn Lynch is pretty funny, give him his own vehicle.

Cleaner

Daisy Ridley in a Die Hard rip-off sold this to me but she really shouldn't be slumming it in this sort of crap. Martin Campbell's lost the touch sadly. One or two decent bits of action near the end but not very good.

Gunman's Walk (Talking Pictures TV)

Brilliant western from the excellent and mostly under-appreciated Phil Karlson. Tab Hunter convincingly plays one of the nastiest little bastards in the genre's history. Loved this.

Borderline (2025)

Dreadful comedy thriller and yet more waste of Samara Weaving. It was directed by her husband, too. Divorce him. The only good thing that came out of this is one of the art department on Ready or Not was vanity searching it on Bluesky and told me they'd just started shooting the sequel. Nice!

Area 51 (Film Four)

Can't resist a found footage film even though they're always shit. This one especially so. Nothing happens until the last 15 minutes. Absolute bollocks.

[tiger_rick]

On 4/17/2025 at 5:58 PM, Devon Malcolm said:

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!

I enjoyed it. The penguin is clearly the highlight but Coogan is good too. The exploration of the issues in Argentina is a fair effort but a bit shallow in the usual Hollywood way.

The funniest bits are nearly all in trailer, as suspected. My missus enjoyed it too but did say she thought it would be funnier. I think she was expecting to see Mr Popper's Penguins 2.

[johnnyboy]

Sinners

Absolutely belting.  The foreboding bluesy score underpinning the film grabs you, doesn't let go, and everyone puts in a shift.

Not a spoiler, but important info but I'll spoiler it just in case:

Spoiler

Don't leave as soon as the credits start as there's a massive mid-credits scene.

 

[Merzbow]

The Monkey, for the first say two thirds it's a really fun little horror comedy but you can tell that it runs out of ideas for what was already a short little story. Perkins gets a decent amount out of it but it needed some more meat on the bone. Is King still too close over the shoulder of directors taking on his work?

[Jesse]

+1 to that Sinners review. Just saw it in IMAX and the shifts in aspect ratio were really impactful and made me glad I sought it out opening weekend. Fantastic cinema experience.

[JLM]

Sinners…

Spoiler

That sequence where Sammie summons the vampires and we see the past, present and future of black music and the throughline between the different eras is absolutely glorious. So glad I saw and heard that in imax, incredible stuff. Very much enjoyed the film as a whole and my brain was satisfied that Michael B Jordan was two different people for the duration. But yeah, that scene was a sensational piece of work and will be my overriding memory of the movie and easily a cinematic highlight of the year. 

 

Edited April 20, 2025 by JLM

[Jesse]

I think that's going to be one of the things that lingers in the memory for a lot of people, but there's another..

Spoiler

oner earlier on, where it follows Lisa across the road to where her mother is working and then her mother back that really gets across the divide between the two sides of the street (one only serving White customers) and does a great job situtating Chinese Americans historically through an entirely visual lens. Thought that was a fantastic piece of filmmaking.

 

[SaitoRyo]

A Guy Thing

I quite like Jason Lee. This early 2000s romcom, also starring Selma Blair and Julia Stiles, really isn't very good. But I quite like Jason Lee, so hey. Friday night film, innit?

Hot Tub Time Machine

Saw this when it came out at the cinema then maybe once more on DVD after, but it's been a good twelve years and it was much funnier than I remembered it being! Another Friday night film. Never saw the sequel but I hear it's wretched so I won't be bothering now.

Bull Durham

Another one I've seen maybe once an age ago. I liked it! Anything about baseball starring Kevin Costner is bound to be good. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins are good as well (and Sarandon gets them out, so that's nice). 

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, SaitoRyo said:

Bull Durham

Another one I've seen maybe once an age ago. I liked it! Anything about baseball starring Kevin Costner is bound to be good. Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins are good as well (and Sarandon gets them out, so that's nice). 

I only saw this for the first time not long ago and didn't realise just what a horny film it was. 

Absolutely everyone is at it.

[Slapnut]

On 4/18/2025 at 10:33 PM, Devon Malcolm said:

Drop (cinema)

Can't emphasise enough how much we need more low-to-mid budget thrillers like this back in the cinemas. It's been good to see a few of them around this year. Does one job and does it well and isn't reliant on twists. Lots of fun.

My wife and I fancied a cinema trip last night and we went to see this based on the description alone and I’ve come to the conclusion I need to do this more often because I don’t think I would have ever watched it based on the trailer but ended up really enjoying it. A real easy 90 minute watch.

[Devon Malcolm]

1 minute ago, Slapnut said:

My wife and I fancied a cinema trip last night and we went to see this based on the description alone and I’ve come to the conclusion I need to do this more often because I don’t think I would have ever watched it based on the trailer but ended up really enjoying it. A real easy 90 minute watch.

Never watch the trailers. They're almost always misleading, shit, full of spoilers or all three.

[davertfnewman]

A game my mate and I play at the cinema is to try and guess the film in a Name That Tune kind of way from the trailer, then remember which trailers we saw after we've left. We have greater success with the first game than we do with the second.

[LaGoosh]

On 4/16/2025 at 1:27 PM, LaGoosh said:

So I have a rare opportunity to go to the cinema next week. I'm torn between seeing Sinners or Warfare (I only have the time to see one of them) so if any of you lads happen to see both of them when they come out this weekend and can recommend which one of the two I should see by Wednesday morning that'd be extremely helpful.

I ended up seeing Sinners. I liked it but didn't love it. There were some breathtaking sequences in it and I mostly enjoyed everything and everyone it. It felt just a bit too overstuffed and long though. Coogler went epic with it and I appreciate that but wish they had dialled back on a few things. It's a clever film with a lot of interesting messages and ideas but I felt like the film beat me over the head a bit with them. The constant flashing back to things that happened earlier in the film got on my nerves slightly - I can remember something that happened an hour ago just fine, cheers. All the cast were great but Delroy Lindo in particular was fantastic as always.

Overall, I'm glad it exists. I'm glad we can still get big genre films where the director takes a big swing and goes all in. 

[Jesse]

33 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

All the cast were great but Delroy Lindo in particular was fantastic as always.

 

Spoiler

The scene in the car after seeing the work gang where he recounts that horrific story and then begins humming the music as a way to deal with the pain really stuck with me. Incredible actor that I need to go back and see more of.