VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[SaitoRyo]

Simple Men

I get on with Hal Hartley's films and remember really enjoying The Unbelievable Truth and Trust, but this was a bit middling to be honest. There's an intentional 'cool' detachment about it, which makes it hard to fully engage or care, but it looks nice and features the quirky characters caught up in melodrama requisite for a 90s indie. You could do better, you could do a lot worse.

[Shirtie]

Nosferatu

It's extraordinarily compelling, one of the best films of last year, It's a Gothic horror nightmare heavy with amazing visual detail, groaning under the weight of portentous dread! 

[FLips]

Escape from New York

Too short to really get you hooked, but too much longer and it would have outstayed it’s welcome. 
An all-star cast and a solid plot for an action film somehow doesn’t end up being enough to push it into A+ territory despite the best efforts of everyone involved. Snake Plissken is a fantastic hero, Donald Pleasance can’t put a foot wrong in anything I’ve ever seen him in, and coming off the back of the Dollars films I was thrilled to see Lee Van Cleef. It just feels like the cast and the story are too good for the direction. 
The excitement is all in the finding the president and escaping with the president, and the bit in the middle where he should be having a big exciting shootout rescue is instead a baseball bat fight with Ox Baker.

It’s fine enough but could have and should have been way better. 

Edited May 24, 2025 by FLips

[mim731]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

It’s fine enough but could have and should have been way better. 

Hard disagree. Cracking cast, cool.as fuck, satisfying ending and a sensational JC soundtrack. Absolute classic. 

[davertfnewman]

Based on this, I've watched Escape From New York and then Assault on Precinct 13, with the latter being that bit better for me because it is generally more realistic while having this strange, almost supernatural edge with blood rituals and wraith-like criminals sweeping around the precinct, while inside you have a cop who's purely good and a criminal who's clearly bad but doing something good. No real explanation for some of the things within it, which only adds to the aura.

[LaGoosh]

Escape From New York is excellent but is slightly let down by the action scenes being mostly pretty weak. I absolutely love Carpenter but I don’t think he ever quite nailed down how to do exciting gun fights or chases in his movies. 

[FLips]

8 hours ago, mim731 said:

Hard disagree. Cracking cast, cool.as fuck, satisfying ending and a sensational JC soundtrack. Absolute classic. 

I don’t disagree with any of this praise, I just think it’s missing a few peices in the middle. The rescue of the president and baseball bat arena isn’t exciting, and the car chase along the bridge is slow. I think everything outside of those is great, and even bits within them like The Duke using the president as target practice and the president shooting The Duke in return. It just isn’t very exciting in the part where it mostly should be.

[johnnyboy]

On 5/22/2025 at 12:34 PM, Hannibal Scorch said:

Lilo and Stitch - More unnecessary Disney live action remake

I thoroughly enjoyed this, but it's also thoroughly redundant due to cartoon existing.

The actress playing Lilo is excellent and CGI Stitch is bang on, however I'm giving it zero stars overall for the diabolical version of "Burning Love" they used.  The animated original had Wynonna (Judd) channeling the spirit of Elvis.  This one was channeling the spirit of a tea bag.  <Iron Sheikh> Apart from that everything was great.

[SaitoRyo]

Fear Street: Prom Queen 

It's alright. Not great. Not outright terrible. It's gory and has a belting 80s pop soundtrack. It's over in about 80 minutes, too. 

Love and a .45

One of the glut of the post-Tarantino indie crime films that emerged in the mid-90s. This is one of the better ones. Better than Natural Born Killers, that's for sure.

[Merzbow]

I like but don't love Escape From NY *but* it may have been a big reason we got the Metal Gear series so it's the best film ever just for that.

[Devon Malcolm]

I really like Escape from New York but it's not top tier Carpenter, for me. I love the atmosphere and set / production design more than the actual story but I always enjoy watching it.

Assault on Precinct 13 is a masterpiece though. It seems to get better every time I watch it. Still the best example of that Rio Bravo-esque siege action-thriller style there's ever been, including Rio Bravo itself.

[mim731]

3 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Assault on Precinct 13 is a masterpiece though. It seems to get better every time I watch it. Still the best example of that Rio Bravo-esque siege action-thriller style there's ever been, including Rio Bravo itself.

High Noon > Rio Bravo for me. Mostly because John Wayne was a total cunt.

[Hannibal Scorch]

9 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

I thoroughly enjoyed this, but it's also thoroughly redundant due to cartoon existing.

The actress playing Lilo is excellent and CGI Stitch is bang on, however I'm giving it zero stars overall for the diabolical version of "Burning Love" they used.  The animated original had Wynonna (Judd) channeling the spirit of Elvis.  This one was channeling the spirit of a tea bag.  <Iron Sheikh> Apart from that everything was great.

Yep. Deffo top tier of the genre but completely unneeded for the most part.

[LaGoosh]

20 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I really like Escape from New York but it's not top tier Carpenter, for me. I love the atmosphere and set / production design more than the actual story but I always enjoy watching it.

Agreed. Escape from New York does what the best sci fi does. It builds a fascinating world but only really gives you a little bit of it so you have to fill in the rest with your imagination. 

[SaitoRyo]

Vanishing Point

A former racing car driver and ex-cop takes a bet that he can deliver a muscle car from Colorado to San Francisco in fifteen hours. Powered by speed and cheered on by those invested in his journey, he meets both helpers and those attempting to stop him along the way. 

Well-made B movie that sits alongside films like Two Lane Blacktop and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry as an entertaining early 70s road movie. It's not quite a classic, but I can see why it has become a cult favourite. I don't think I'll ever bother with the 1997 remake, which is supposed to be absolutely shite.