VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[SaitoRyo]

Joyride (1977)

Three bored teens quit their go-nowhere LA jobs and head to Alaska dreaming of running their own salmon fishing busienss. Turns out Alaska isn't that easy and, on the contrary, is full of corrupt assholes who want to make their lives miserable. 

I liked the first half of this low-budget road movie, but they kind of lost me halfway through and never really got me back. There was just something off about it and a lot of the situations didn't ring true, despite its relatively realistic style. There's some interesting stuff about it, such as the three teens being played by the children of famous stars (including Melanie Griffith in an early role) and an ELO soundtrack that really doesn't fit the film but I guess had to be there because the kids love ELO or something. 

[FLips]

K-Pop Demon Hunters

The music itself wasn’t for me but even so it may be the best non-Ghibli animation I’ve watched since Toy Story 3. Really good stuff. 

The Matrix

Boring nonsense. Turned it off not very long in at all. I remembered it being boring from seeing it when it first came out in Blockbuster but figured it was because I was a kid and didn’t get it. Arguably found it more boring as an adult.

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

The Matrix

Boring nonsense. Turned it off not very long in at all. I remembered it being boring from seeing it when it first came out in Blockbuster but figured it was because I was a kid and didn’t get it. Arguably found it more boring as an adult.

I rewatched it a couple of years ago and it was worse than I remembered. The Wachowskis make films I really want to like but almost never do.

[FLips]

Hamilton

My wife finally convinced me to watch this with her after months of, to be frank, pestering. She ended up turning it off after maybe an hour because “she’s not enjoying it because I’m not enjoying it”. Which is fair. But I was unlikely to ever enjoy it and I made that clear before we watched it. 
Despite a mostly black cast it’s the whitest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s rap you’d hear in one of those school presentations where an Anti-Drugs group would come and do performance art. It’s rap you’d hear if you were stuck in the car with a white woman driving home from Starbucks and Will Smith came on the radio. It’s lame and it’s hard to watch without cringing.

[LaGoosh]

14 hours ago, FLips said:

It’s rap you’d hear in one of those school presentations where an Anti-Drugs group would come and do performance art. It’s rap you’d hear if you were stuck in the car with a white woman driving home from Starbucks and Will Smith came on the radio. It’s lame and it’s hard to watch without cringing.

My wife, who doesn't like rap music, tried to sell me on watching Hamilton because "the rapping is really good". I watched it. The rapping is the absolute drizzling shits. There was an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway back in the day which had Stephen Fry and Josie Lawrence do a rap in it. Hamilton felt like two hours of that one 30 second long awful skit. 

[SuperBacon]

The rapping in Hamilton is exactly what it should be. It sounds like early 90s novelty rap when everyone thought they could have a go and that's probably fine for it.

It's very "1,2 buckle my shoe" and doesn't need to be anything over that. For anyone that doesn't really like rap, it probably does sound good.

Reminds me of this (any excuse to share)

 

[Chest Rockwell]

I liked Hamilton. It's corny in the way that all musicals are generally but I didn't think it was bad lyrically for what it is. Couldn't watch it all in one go though, it goes on forever.

I tried to watch In the Heights and that was much cornier; couldn't get in to that. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

I like Hamilton and I understand the criticism but also it’s supposed to be a mainstream musical and appeal broadly. I think it’s pitched exactly as it should be, it’s accessible.

[Lorne Malvo]

I liked Hamilton when I first saw it on Disney+ in 2020. I've not watched it since but I think I would hate it if I watched it again now, lagely in part to getting really really sick of seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda absolutely bloody everywhere for those few years. He's up there with Taika Waititi for me in terms of liking people less and less the more I see of them. 

[gmoney]

Hamilton is much better when it isn't Lin-Manuel Miranda in the lead, sounding like he's going to cry all the time. 

[Chest Rockwell]

He's the worst actor in the play by a country mile as well. 

 

Edit: lol, snap. 

Edited November 6, 2025 by Chest Rockwell

[gmoney]

I do think criticism about the rapping in Hamilton is entirely fair, it's not breaking any new ground in anyway in that regard. However, I will say I quite like old school, fairly simple rap and I don't think there's anything wrong with it's place in a mainstream theatre show.  As mentioned, LMM makes it ten times worse with his delivery. I was lucky enough to see it without him, before I'd heard the soundtrack so my first impression was a lot better. The best song is Wait For It, and that's not a LLM performed song so I can happily enjoy it on Spotify. 

[SuperBacon]

More for the Sunny thread and Sunny fans* but this with Miranda is well worth a watch.

*covers more than Sunny but helps if you know the show.

[Bellenda Carlisle]

 

Bugonia 

Loved this, one of my faves of the year. Emma Stone can do no wrong in my eyes. Just go and see it. No way should Alicia Siverstone be playing Jesse Plemons mum though, is she even a decade older than him? Horrible role for someone who used to be Cher Horowitz and Batgirl. 

Big spoilers, don't read unless you've seen it or never will...

Spoiler

Knew the ending was coming as I've seen the original Save the Green Planet. Loved the bizarre look and vibe of the alien stuff. Also not enough films where everyone in the world dies in the end, that was awesome.

 

Roofman

Wasn't expecting the most from this but really liked it.  Felt like this could have been a big hit in another time or with different promotion or something, probably should have been 12 or PG cos it almost felt like an old school family film, not a kid's film but that lost area where 80s PG films used to live. Channing Tatum was really charming in it as well. It was so fanciful that I was blown away to find out it was as accurate to the true story as it was.

 

I don't want to face stuff I actually need to do today so here's some others I saw at the cinema I didn't get round to mentioning yet.

 

Good Boy

Horror film from the point of view of a dog character. I love animals and always like the thought of films where animals are the main character and act like animals instead of acting human, after watching this and Flow (boring cartoon about a cat with a shit personality and ugly anination) however I'm not sure they work for me in practice. I think good boy's combination of the dog POV and the mysterious slow vibe was too much. Would have preferred to see a dog horror film with a more obvious storyline like he was beig chased by an evil dog or something. Dog was lovely though, recommended if you like shots of dogs and forests.

The Conjuring Last Rites 

Seen all of these without ever really caring about the series, I do like Patrick Wilson though. I think they're hampered by the fact they pretend to be true stories, they're too dull and low key without being well written or interesting enough to pull it off and could do with some more spectacular or out there scenes, this one felt especially flat although I am somewhat attached to the main pair now. I did like the ending a lot 

Spoiler

I've never seen a film where a character who has visions of the future ends the film by having a vision of the happy rest of their lives. It was a bit cheesy but I honestly thought it was so nice and felt earned after so many films and obviously not an ending most film series could do.

 

The Smashing Machine 

What the fuck was that? Massive miss for me, hardly anything interesting happened and the Rock looked like fucking Frankenstein, absolutely uncanny looking to me, especially being twice as old as the guy he was playing.

The Long Walk

I enjoyed this a lot, loved the mystery of the setting that just let you focus on the main hook of it. Always up for a weird post apocalypse type vibe. I liked the characters and their journey although I found it hard to contextualise things like the distance they were walking and what it would be like. Took me embarrassingly long to recognise mark hamill.

The Roses 

Enjoyed this more than I expected but didn't love it or anything. Olivia Colman and Benedict C were perfect for what it was supposed to be but it might have spent a bit too much time world building before kicking off properly. Think I prefer the 80s version which felt even nastier although I did like how the power in the relationship was kind of evened out more in the new one, it felt like a fairer playing field for their battle 

Spinal Tap II

This probably would have been a massively long review if I'd done it when I first saw it, I had a lot of thoughts on it. It really boils down to the following though; If you need the sequel to a 40 year old classic to be as great and impactful and the original then this film is guaranteed to disappoint and you'll wish they hadn't bothered. However if you're happy just to be around the characters doing their schtick and you'd rather see more Spinal Tap than not, it's fine with a few good laughs. 

Caught Stealing

I'm super gay for Austin Butler and it's always nice to see a fun crime caper so I did like this. Tonally it's all over the place though. Vincent D'onofrio and Liev Schrieber stole the film as the Hasidic gangsters.

Honey Don't 

I love Margaret Qualley and desperately want to love this "lesbian b movie trilogy" she's doing with one of the Coens, I really want to love them but I just find them a bit cringe and try hard and qualley was incredibly miscast in both so far. Still fun enough nonsense.

 

[Devon Malcolm]

50 minutes ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

Flow (boring cartoon about a cat with a shit personality and ugly anination)

I've liked your post but I would also like to separately comment that I in no way condone this opinion and find it grossly upsetting.

But yeah, Good Boy wasn't very good.