VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[The King Of Swing]

Was never a fan of the original, so didn't expect the remake to be anything other than shit. 

[FLips]

Death Becomes Her

Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn feud over sad sack plastic surgeon Bruce Willis, and in a fool-hardy attempt to retain their youth end up drinking a magic potion that essentially turns them into undead zombies.
Thought this was fantastic. The pacing feels a little off and at times you wonder where it's going, but the second Bruce Willis fingerpoke of dooms Meryl Streep down the stairs the film snowballs right through the end as some sort of special effect heavy body horror comedy. 
Laugh out loud funny, great special effects and all three leads kill it. A condemning satire and commentary on female beauty standards and well worth a watch.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

God. I saw that at the cinema. A bit odd for a 12 year old, but as I grew up it became more and more brilliant to me.

[Weezenal]

There’s a Death Becomes Her musical on Broadway I got tickets for my mum to and she said it’s also great. 

[JoeManco7]

Irreversible

Never heard of this film before and I have to admit I only got it from a charity shop in a five DVDs for a pound deal because the Tartan Video title stood out amongst the usual Hollywood crud I had seen before.  When I glanced at the back of the DVD case, found out it was a French film with subtitles and read the review quotes ("A masterpiece" The Guardian "Exceptional... should not be missed" Jonathan Ross) I felt like spending twenty pence on it to fill in a missing film in my viewing history.

I didn't register too much of the film synopsis before trying to watch it, although knew it did warn about involving violence, and when it started with the end credits reversed I thought there was going to be some twist or puzzle to it. So I don't want to give too much of the story away here, but it wasn't making much sense at first and just seemed to be about a hardcore gay club night. Then when Monica Belucci has her first scene in this film, you know Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore.

Watching Irreversible in a cinema when it was released without knowing what would happen? Cringe! I didn't want to rewatch the scene which I am sure is the one being described as 'one of the most violent onscreen screnes in cinema history', but the fact I could go back to previous DVD chapters to put the story together made the film work.

So I am very glad I got to view this film today - and not just because I have checked the CEX trade-in value of the DVD...

Edited July 28, 2025 by JoeManco7

[Carbomb]

My little sister hates that film. Says that the Monica Bellucci scene

Spoiler

is just needless, and highlights everything wrong with the attitude in cinema towards women and sexuality; that overuse of rape scenes is bad enough, but one that long is going far past anything meaningful to say and can't be anything but gratuitousness.

 

[FLips]

Dogma

File it next to Ricky Gervais’ Stand-Up in the section “things that were clever and funny when I was a teenager”.

The film peaks with the revelation of the Buddy Christ and then devolves into cringe monologues about religion and embarrassing Jay and Silent Bob derogatory “comedy”.

Took a risk watching this hoping it wouldn’t have aged badly but sadly it’s pretty bad.

[LaGoosh]

10 hours ago, Carbomb said:

My little sister hates that film. Says that the Monica Bellucci scene

  Hide contents

is just needless, and highlights everything wrong with the attitude in cinema towards women and sexuality; that overuse of rape scenes is bad enough, but one that long is going far past anything meaningful to say and can't be anything but gratuitousness.

 

I would agree with her.

I think if you remove the arthouse sheen, time gimmick and the controversial/shocking violence you're left with a pretty dull film with nothing particularly interesting to say.

[DavidB6937]

Definitely felt like one of those 'of its time' type deals where the Europeans decided that going extreme was the best way of getting attention.

It's one that gets the most mainstream coverage because of the way it's presented, but the gimmick doesn't make it any less shallow.

Led to a lot more extreme stuff that often leant more into the torture side of things rather than the sexual but thankfully we seem to have moved past the heavy period for them. 

[gmoney]

Bram Stoker's Dracula

I like this film more every time I see it. I watched it about 15 years ago last,. I thought then it looked beautiful but was a bit style over substance, but this time I was delighted by almost all of it. The opening half hour is just wall to wall iconic imagery and camp excellence. Tom Waits as Renfeld, Oldman and Hopkins doing some lovely overacting and Sadie Frost is fucking brilliant. It does sag a bit in the middle, but it picks up again fantastically towards the end. Keanu Reeves is still woefully miscast, the poor sod, but I do love him still. Oh and the soundtrack is stunning. 

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, gmoney said:

Bram Stoker's Dracula

I like this film more every time I see it. I watched it about 15 years ago last,. I thought then it looked beautiful but was a bit style over substance, but this time I was delighted by almost all of it. The opening half hour is just wall to wall iconic imagery and camp excellence. Tom Waits as Renfeld, Oldman and Hopkins doing some lovely overacting and Sadie Frost is fucking brilliant. It does sag a bit in the middle, but it picks up again fantastically towards the end. Keanu Reeves is still woefully miscast, the poor sod, but I do love him still. Oh and the soundtrack is stunning. 

Yup. @Chris B reminded me of this song:

 

Really quite sublime - if there was anyone who could pull off the Gothic "graveyard poets" aesthetic and sound in a modern style, it was Annie Lennox in the 1990s.

[Devon Malcolm]

8 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

I think if you remove the arthouse sheen, time gimmick and the controversial/shocking violence you're left with a pretty dull film with nothing particularly interesting to say.

You could apply this sentence to every Gaspar Noé film as well.

[gmoney]

52 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Yup. @Chris B reminded me of this song:

 

Really quite sublime - if there was anyone who could pull off the Gothic "graveyard poets" aesthetic and sound in a modern style, it was Annie Lennox in the 1990s.

I was thinking more of Wojciech Kilar's score, but that song's pretty good too. 

[Mr_Danger]

Happy Gilmore 2

Heard a lot of ‘it’s so bad it’s good’ for this but for me it’s just bad. Even by Sandler standards. The constant call backs are one thing but the accompanying flashbacks alongside the call backs are too much. Feels like a Netflix execs thing. Obviously Sandler is a likeable dufus and his younger kid has loads of charm. The older one has a decent screen presence too. All the golfers are terrible actors as you’d expect but it’s a shame John Daly is because he has a decent sized role and is a perfect fit for this type of shit. Shooter was ace, should have made it a buddy movie with Happy and Shooter.

Bring Her Back

This was pretty good. Not as much disturbing shit as I’d been led to believe but what’s in there is really affecting. A couple walked out during the build to the climax. Wasn’t so much scary as it was disturbing and sad. Interested in what the Phillippou’s do next. Someone check to see if Paddington is alright.

Damsel

This surprised me. Was expecting a turd but it’s pretty decent. It’s quite creepy for a bit and feels like a good bridging film for kids who want to go a bit stronger from Goosebumps level horror to something a bit more or maybe that’s just me having Dark Souls ptsd with getting chased around dark caves and dragons.

[BomberPat]

the score for Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula is absolutely fantastic. I think The Beginning is the best piece of film music at capturing a sense of impending doom and dread since the main theme to The Shining.

 

 

I love the film. It's daft and over the top, but it's fucking Dracula, what do you expect? I do find it funny how much stick the American cast got for their accents, considering Hopkins' accent travels halfway around western Europe in a single sentence.