VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[Cheeky Boy]

33 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I watched Inland Empire once, and never again. I can hardly remember it, and keep thinking I'm due a rewatch, but life's too short. It's about a week long and filmed on something only slightly more watchable than a Game Boy camera. When I first watched it, I remember thinking it felt like a film student trying to do David Lynch, rather than an actual David Lynch project. Maybe it will have aged surprisingly well. I doubt I will ever find out.

I don't know much about the technology behind filming and cameras, but it looking like it was filmed on a phone was my biggest takeaway. Was there a creative/budgetary reason it looked so bad?

Edited June 4, 2025 by Cheeky Boy

[Devon Malcolm]

Yeah, I didn't like Inland Empire much at all. Arguably his worst film.

[Mr_Danger]

Yeah it sat on my shelf for a good two years before I tried it out and couldn’t get past the look of it. Same as when you forget to change the setting on your new telly and Coronation Street looks like a fly on the wall documentary.

[Merzbow]

Inland Empire turns up the obliqueness of Mulholland Drive but in a bit of annoying way, it doesn't exactly feel like Lynch's dream logic either. It's far simpler when you realise it's just a hate letter to Hollywood and it's treatment of women though, I'm not sure I got much more from it other than I think David had quite a bit of self critique in there over how Twin Peaks and FWWM affected Sheryl Lee.

[Mr_Danger]

Mountainhead is a massive disappointment. Jesse Armstrong ramping up the satire and fucking the tone right up. It’s neither sharp or biting enough nor funny enough to be a compelling satire and even though the billionaire protagonists are meant to be shallow buffoons there’s little else to them. For a film where the fate of the world could be at stake there’s no tension at all. In all it feels like an idea for an episode of Succession that he reworked to little success. If this is his transition from tv to feature then I hope he learns from this pish because he’s responsible for some of my favourite ever tv.

[organizedkaos]

On 6/5/2025 at 10:39 AM, Merzbow said:

Inland Empire turns up the obliqueness of Mulholland Drive but in a bit of annoying way, it doesn't exactly feel like Lynch's dream logic either. It's far simpler when you realise it's just a hate letter to Hollywood and it's treatment of women though, I'm not sure I got much more from it other than I think David had quite a bit of self critique in there over how Twin Peaks and FWWM affected Sheryl Lee.

I kinda liked it, particularly on second viewing. As you said it takes the dream logic of MD except it's way more fractured and (spoilers for both films, although i'd argue you can't really spoil Inland Empire by describing "plot")

Spoiler

Mullholland Drive cleverly uses the reality to hook you in to the fantasy. You get invested in the fantasy in such a way when you're confronted by reality it's confusing but only because you don't really want reality to exist, thus putting you bang in the main characters head. With Inland Empire it's basically "actress thinks about her role, and how women are treated in general". We don't really care about her because she's mostly just watching things happen or being someone else

Really like your point about the self critique thing, I'd not considered that despite knowing the stories of how people were a bit concerned Sheryl Lee was overly getting lost in the emotions of that role because she' wasn't really experienced (good?) enough to distance herself whilst maintaining such a complicated performance. There's definitely a lot of that idea in the later parts of IE, I'd just never considered those two points together if you see what I mean? 

There's some incredible moments in IE if you just kinda of go along for the ride, see it as a bunch of different short films and ideas Lynch had knocking around and make absolutely no attempt to fit them together in a narrative way.

I'm glad Twin Peaks redux became his "requiem" as it were.  I think that's one of the things he was going for in Inland Empire (partiuclarly that great credits scene set to Sinnerman where it's dance party with a barrage of references) but Twin Peaks is just so beautiful in how it uses all these elements from his career whilst being about aging, death and looking back on your life.  I could've lived with IE as his last work but TP as his last work is a beautiful final chapter. 

[Devon Malcolm]

Dangerous Animals (cinema)

Jai Courtney as a shark-obsessed serial killer who records himself feeding women to sharks? Sure, why not. Had a great time and Courtney is a genuine hoot in this. Some nice violence and gore, great underwater scenes, and Hassie Harrison is a movie star in the making. Tacoma FD hive rise up!

The Ballad of Wallis Island (cinema)

Nothing you haven't seen before but also really, really pleasant and funny viewing. Tim Key the dramatic actor is absolutely a thing I didn't know I needed to see. Only a bastard would hate this. Then again, this is UKFF.

The Manchurian Candidate (2004) (5 Star?)

Excellent remake of the legendary original. Doesn't stray too much from the first film except the conflict covered and the superb cast do the rest. Liev Schreiber is great, isn't he. What a guy.

Lilies of the Field (BBC2)

Sidney Poitier teaches a bunch of eastern European nuns how to speak English and builds them a chapel. Exactly as wholesome as that sounds. Poitier the greatest and most important American actor of all time? I think he might just be.

This Land is Mine (YouTube)

Initially made as a propaganda film by Jean Renoir urging his fellow French people to rise up against the Nazis; now stands as a calling card to those in Palestine too. Powerful and brilliantly acted by Charles Laughton.

Ben (Talking Pictures TV)

Inadvertently hilarious rat invasion horror film. This is a sequel to Willard, which I haven't seen, but I definitely will after this. Yes it's the one with the awful Michael Jackson song but don't let that put you off.

Deadly Strangers (Plex)

Enjoyable mid-70s British thriller about a hitchhiker (Hayley Mills) who's picked up by a guy who may be an escaped serial killer. For some reason Sterling Hayden pops in halfway through, if you need any more persuading to watch it.

Canyon Passage (Talking Pictures TV)

Excellent western with a sweeping story and a really good central triangle between Dana Andrews, Patricia Roc and Brian Donlevy. Can't recommend this highly enough to western fans.

The Hunt for Red October

Always a treat whenever you put it on. Let's hear it for Scottish accented Russian defectors!

[Devon Malcolm]

Oh, and:-

Predator: Killer of Killers

This just came out today and I'd never even heard of it until today. Dan Trachtenberg just deciding to knock out an animated anthology while we wait for the next Predator film. Turns out to be the second best in the whole franchise and one of the best animated films I've seen. All the segments are beautifully animated with inventive action and great storytelling and the final segment is the best of all. What a film.

[LaGoosh]

I thought that was pretty fun. I was a huge fan of The Animatrix back in the day and this captured that sort of vibe. It was also smart enough to know that yeah people have always wanted to see a ninja or a Viking fight a Predator but that in reality might not work for a full feature so here's a decent 20 minutes of it to satisfy that craving.

[Jesse]

My wife is recovering from surgery and wanted a quiet house, so I took the housemate out for dinner and a movie of his choice. Unfortunately for me, that now means I've watched Clown In A Cornfield at the cinema.

Amazed this had distribution, feels like the kind of thing that would be dropped on a streamer around Halloween. It's a horror comedy that's light on both. None of the kills are particularly brutal or funny, and the CG stuff doesn't have the charm of a classic practical horror so it all falls a bit flat. There are a few decent attempts at jokes, but the set-ups are really obvious, and it's all undercut by the tongue-in-cheek 'we know you're watching a movie' vibe to the dialogue that's infected modern comedy.

Still not the worst film I've seen this year, that honour remains with Flight Risk

[johnnyboy]

Showgirls - 30th anniversary cinema re-release of the 20th anniversary 4k touch up.

Slightly gutted that I couldn't make it to one of the drag-a-long performances so I had to make do with a regular cinema showing.

I'd primed Mrs JB for it by showing her the "You Don't Nomi" doc (apparently included on Prime at the minute https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/you-dont-nomi) which celebrates the re-evaluation and kitschness of it all.

It was fun to laugh in the cinema at the swimming pool sex scene and the unfathomably mad dialogue.

However, spoilered for content....

Spoiler

The rape of Molly scene is absolutely horrific.  Maybe I'd memory-holed the specifics of that scene so that I could remember the rest of the insanity fondly, but JFC that is a hard watch, especially so on the giant screen.  Not exactly sure how that's played for laughs at a banter screening, whereas virtually every other moment in the film can be chuckled or poked at.

 

[johnnyboy]

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and 3

Speeding my way (badoom-tsh) through this double-bill.

2 was instantly forgettable.  I've literally forgotten what happened and I watched it hours ago.  Knuckles and Miles are in it and the guy from one of the crime shows Mrs JB watches (Criminal Minds?).

3 is considerably better apart from the interminable final battle.  I swear it's half the run time of the entire film.  Still, keeps Jim Carey off the streets.

[gmoney]

Watch All That Jazz again yesterday. One of the most audacious films I've ever seen. The final sequence is just utterly amazing. 

[DEF]

2 hours ago, johnnyboy said:

Showgirls - 30th anniversary cinema re-release of the 20th anniversary 4k touch up.

Slightly gutted that I couldn't make it to one of the drag-a-long performances so I had to make do with a regular cinema showing.

I'd primed Mrs JB for it by showing her the "You Don't Nomi" doc (apparently included on Prime at the minute https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/you-dont-nomi) which celebrates the re-evaluation and kitschness of it all.

It was fun to laugh in the cinema at the swimming pool sex scene and the unfathomably mad dialogue.

However, spoilered for content....

  Hide contents

The rape of Molly scene is absolutely horrific.  Maybe I'd memory-holed the specifics of that scene so that I could remember the rest of the insanity fondly, but JFC that is a hard watch, especially so on the giant screen.  Not exactly sure how that's played for laughs at a banter screening, whereas virtually every other moment in the film can be chuckled or poked at.

 

If it's been a while since you saw it it could be because you didn't see it. The scene was cut over here by the BBFC until some point in the 2000s

Edited June 8, 2025 by DEF
Missed an important F there

[johnnyboy]

4 minutes ago, DEF said:

If it's been a while since you saw it it could be because you didn't see it. The scene was cut over here by the BBC until some point in the 2000s

I didn't realise that.  The last time I watched the film itself it would have been from the 2017 blu-ray release so it should have been there, but I'd have been more focussed on Henrietta's comedic boob-flash dress.