VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[BomberPat]

The Man Who Never Was

I wasted most of Sunday hungover and moping around a hotel room, but luckily this was on telly. Based on Ewan Montagu's book of the same name, it's the story of Operation Mincemeat, since adapted into a mediocre film and a genuinely phenomenal musical. During World War 2, British intelligence procure a dead body and drop it in the sea off the coast of Spain, with a briefcase cuffed to his wrist containing carefully faked documents suggesting the Allies intend to invade Sardinia, hoping that the Nazis will take the bait and divert their attentions away from the actual plan. 

This was very mid-50s; very dry and procedural, but charming with it. It has an interesting quirk of a lot of the real story still being covered by the official secrets act, so it's reasonably historically accurate given what was known at the time, but a lot of angles they could have taken just weren't available to them.

Misery

Still at the hotel, got in after a night at the pub to find this had just started on BBC2. Hadn't watched it in years. Absolutely phenomenal, I don't think I could pick a single hole in it, one of those King adaptations that manages to be an improvement over the source material. Given the scope of toxic fandom these days, it only feels more relevant now than it ever did, and it's not often I would say this, but it feels like an idea fit for a remake.

[LaGoosh]

7 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

I would say this, but it feels like an idea fit for a remake.

Problem is it'd be impossible to find anyone anywhere even 5% as good as Kathy Bates and James Caan are in this. I love Misery, it's so good.

Edited March 4 by LaGoosh

[Devon Malcolm]

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (cinema)

An early contender for film of the year. The perfect balance between comedy and genuine terror. Rose Byrne is as good as has been reported, as is Conan O'Brien as the world's worst therapist. Just great.

Little Amelie or the Character of Rain (cinema)

I watched this in a double-bill with If I Had Legs I'd Kick You and it's best double-bill I've ever done at the cinema. Beautifully animated coming-of-age drama that says so much in only about 75 minutes. The best film Ghibli never made.

Sirat (cinema)

This is absolutely not for everyone - a slow-burn drama about a man looking for his missing daughter with his son at some desert raves in Morocco as WWIII starts up. Incredible soundtrack, extremely tense second half, I loved it.

The Housemaid

Nah. I like Paul Feig and I'm glad this has done massive numbers for him. But it's too long and it's not sleazy or violent enough to be like its much better 90s erotic thriller counterparts. Sydney Sweeney is rubbish, Not Chris Hemsworth is worse, Amanda Seyfried superb. The end scene is fucking stupid.

You Can Count On Me

I wish Kenneth Lonergan made more films. I gave this 4 stars on Letterboxd but I think I underrated it. Lovely, warm comedy-drama about two siblings who reconnect and never come close to sorting out their problems. Loved this.

Damnation Alley

Ropey-looking 70s post-apoclyptic sci-fi adventure with George Peppard basically warming up to be Hannibal Smith in-between the odd attack by armour-plated cockroaches and giant scorpions. Not as fun as it sounds.

Banana Split

Sounding the @SuperBacon klaxon for this one. Nice little comedy about a high school girl who becomes best friends with her ex's new girlfriend. Hannah Marks is great, the soundtrack even better, only 83 minutes!

Putney Swope

Excellent satirical comedy about a black man who is accidentally put in charge of an advertising company. Very funny and weird but never smug about how clever it is. Directed by Robert Downey Sr. I already like him more than his son.

The Orphans

The latest Alban Lenoir French actioner is just as much fun as the rest of his stuff. Breezy buddy comedy with some good fights and a superb car chase. 85 minutes!

Mr. No Legs

Bonkers 70s actioner about a wheelchair-bound gun-for-hire. Features one brilliant bar fight, one of the most underrated car chases I've seen, and an amazing slow-motion fight scene involving Mr. No Legs himself. I had a great time.

Hellfire

Isaac Florentine has knocked out a fair few really good DTV action films - but this ain't one of them. Nothing happens for 50 minutes and then when it does it's really stupid. Stephen Lang can still go but this just wasn't good on any level.

The Taking of Beverly Hills

I just love this dumb shit action film about a massive heist being foiled by an ex-American football player even if nobody else does.

Rapid Fire

Just imagine how many quality action films we'd have got out of Brandon Lee. This should have just been the beginning. I really miss Powers Boothe, too.

Primitive War 

I have no idea how they made this for $6 million, why it got a bit of a cinema release, or whose idea it was to make the 'dinosaurs found during Vietnam War' film 133 minutes long. But, amazingly, it works. It's genuinely quite good fun even if the accents and dialogue are terrible. Way better than I would have expected, fascinated by the whole thing. And they're doing a sequel!

[Lorne Malvo]

11 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Banana Split

Sounding the @SuperBacon klaxon for this one. Nice little comedy about a high school girl who becomes best friends with her ex's new girlfriend. Hannah Marks is great, the soundtrack even better, only 83 minutes!

 

I really liked this too. Liana Liberato is one of those actresses who I wish would pop up more. I remember her being fantastic in Trust (2010) too. 

[Devon Malcolm]

4 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

I really liked this too. Liana Liberato is one of those actresses who I wish would pop up more. I remember her being fantastic in Trust (2010) too. 

She was really good in The Beach House too. She should be a bigger name.

[LaGoosh]

3 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

as is Conan O'Brien as the world's worst therapist.

The scene where he finally shows a human, empathetic side then follows it up with one of the meanest monologues I've ever seen had me in tears of laughter.

[Devon Malcolm]

32 minutes ago, LaGoosh said:

The scene where he finally shows a human, empathetic side then follows it up with one of the meanest monologues I've ever seen had me in tears of laughter.

He was brilliant, I really hope he does more films after this.

[JLM]

The Bride

Spoiler

 

I can see why this is getting mixed reviews, it’s a difficult one to assess. I enjoyed it but it certainly has flaws. It looks gorgeous, I thought Jessie Buckley was magnificent, some good dark comedy, a dance number I enjoyed, some genuinely moving scenes and moments. I like the device they use where Frank and The Bride are put into the old black and white movies. It was a hell of a spectacle and I was never bored.
 

However, I think muddled and messy are very fair criticisms. The Mary Shelley angle did not resolve in a particularly satisfying or meaningful way, the movie has a bit of a go at saying quite a few things, is partially successful at hitting some of them but doesn’t land on a coherent point or message. It feels like it’s going to for a while and then weirdly kind of bottles it. The storytelling is clunky at times, especially everything involving the Peter Skarsgaard and Penelope Cruz duo. Skarsgaard in particular has some scenes of pure exposition that felt like they’d been hastily added in to explain why certain previous scenes should have had more emotional weight. I didn’t like the ending and I’m not sure it made me feel what the movie intended me to feel. 
 

Despite that fairly long list of criticisms, I have a lot of time for a movie that takes a lot of big swings and has big ideas even if they don’t all land. You can feel the passion that went into it, there was enough stuff I felt did work or was at least interesting or engaging. Lastly, again, Jessie Buckley’s performance I found completely mesmerising and I’d have felt I got value for money from that alone.

 

Errrm… see what you make of it out of 5? 

 

•  

I

 

[Mr_Danger]

On 3/4/2026 at 11:17 AM, LaGoosh said:

Problem is it'd be impossible to find anyone anywhere even 5% as good as Kathy Bates and James Caan are in this. I love Misery, it's so good.

I thought Rachel McAdams tapped in to Kathy Bates as Annie in Send Help. Definitely took an influence from her. It’s an all timer for Kathy Bates though. That late night slot it pops up on BBC every now and then (always on a school night!) has me staying up late to finish watching it every time, for the last 25 years or so.

[DavidB6937]

Mothers Pride - I'll admit that I've got a soft spot for quintessentially English movies like this. Especially when it's a fun game of spotting who's who in the cast. Might depend on your feelings towards Martin Clunes. Predictable but kinda sweet and I've got a soft spot for Gabriella Wilde.

EPIC (Elvis) - while not a particular big Elvis fan I do enjoy documentaries like this and ones on The Beatles etc where you get a little insight into the chaos of fame at the time. Made by Baz Luhrmann who of course also did the biopic, it's not exactly a warts and all look at Elvis but more of a celebration. There's only so much you can fit into the fairly short run time. Great quality footage though and still find it mad that he never played outside of North America.

The Bride - the movie I was looking forward to the most today and the biggest disappointment. I love Bale. I love Buckley. Hell I even love the Gyllenhaals. The trailer looked a lot of fun. All the ingredients were there for one hell of a ride.

But dare I say it.. I was kinda bored at points? I don't know why but it just didn't grip me at any point whatsoever. I'm not sure I can fault the performances but the movie itself just never seemed to gel enough to captivate me. Massively let down by it and actually couldn't wait for it to end.

Crime 101 - Hemsworth and Ruffalo escape the Marvel world for some crime with Halle Berry. Good but not great. Certainly a genre that has been done a lot better but also many worse. I still don't really understand Barry Keoghan's face.

 

[Statto]

8 hours ago, DavidB6937 said:

Crime 101 - Hemsworth and Ruffalo escape the Marvel world for some crime with Halle Berry. Good but not great. Certainly a genre that has been done a lot better but also many worse. I still don't really understand Barry Keoghan's face.

My wife & I spent the walk home from seeing this the other week trying to figure out if he's genuinely odd-looking (or indeed, even as far as ugly) or if it's just circumstantial because he's generally entirely surrounded by classically good-looking people.

Like, did everyone at his school think he was drop-dead gorgeous? I'd not be surprised if that were the case. 

[davertfnewman]

He's got the look of a painting where the canvas is perfect but the things painted on it aren't. Good bone structure, beady eyes.

[LaGoosh]

He's a unique looking guy but also looks to have had a fair amount of work done which has made him look even more...unique.

[SaitoRyo]

Borderline

Charles Bronson is the border patrol agent on the US/Mexico border who must stop a smuggling operation and find the man who killed his partner. It's alright, you know. Not great and not some long-forgotten Bronson hidden gem, but pretty good. Probably less action and more talking than you would expect for a Bronson vehicle from this era. Ed Harris, in an early role, plays an evil bastard. It's not as good as The Border (starring Jack Nicholson), which came out a couple years later.

Tourist Trap

I thought this was quite poor and really disappointing, actually. Stuck it on as I thought a 90-minute slasher would be something fun and easy, but I was mostly bored. Probably because it's not a typical slasher and was actually rated PG, despite the content/themes not exactly being PG. Alas, the rating meant there was no nudity or gore and very little blood or violence. I'm not saying I need these things, but they probably would have helped make it a lot less dull. Glad I watched it though, as I had long been intrigued by the poster, and I am interested by what the 70s slashers do before the formula really kicked in later on. 

[DEF]

16 hours ago, SaitoRyo said:

Tourist Trap

I thought this was quite poor and really disappointing, actually. Stuck it on as I thought a 90-minute slasher would be something fun and easy, but I was mostly bored. Probably because it's not a typical slasher and was actually rated PG, despite the content/themes not exactly being PG. Alas, the rating meant there was no nudity or gore and very little blood or violence. I'm not saying I need these things, but they probably would have helped make it a lot less dull. Glad I watched it though, as I had long been intrigued by the poster, and I am interested by what the 70s slashers do before the formula really kicked in later on. 

Not that this would necessarily make any difference but you should know. When Tourist Trap was released on Blu-ray in both the US and UK it was missing 5 minutes and also somehow a cut of the movie that was out of sequence. So depending on how you watched it if it's the same transfer used on those discs it's not the film as it was intended.