VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[SaitoRyo]

Someone to Watch Over Me

Classy 1987 thriller/romance from Ridley Scott. I swear I've seen some, if not all of it, before, as it felt very familiar. Anyway, Tom Berenger plays a cop recently promoted to detective whose first assignment is to help protect a rich socialite (Mimi Rogers) who has witnessed a murder and is due to testify against the bad guy. It's good and atmospheric (takes place mostly at night, lots of steam shooting out of grates on the NYC streets etc.). Both of the leads are good, as is Lorraine Bracco as the wife who simply isn't going to take any shit.

Body Bags

Made-for-TV horror anthology film from 1993. The first two segments are directed by John Carpenter, the last by Tobe Hooper. This was another one where I know I've seen at least some of it, as I remembered the opening segment (Gas Station) quite well. That's the best of the three, to be honest. A basic but well-done twenty-five minutes of suspenseful horror. The second segment (Hair) was the weakest, for me, as it was more dark comedy and didn't really have much horror. The third - Eye - was cliched and predictable, but good fun. Was also fun counting the cameos throughout the film, including Wes Craven, Debbie Harry and Roger Corman. A decent 90 minutes overall, but it peaks early.

White of the Eye

Now this I really liked. It's a psychological thriller/slasher (more like a giallo) from '87, directed by Donald Cammell (co-director of Performance). A bunch of rich married women are being brutally murdered in their homes and a married man who installs premium sound systems is accused of doing it all. It's very artily made and the editing gives it a surreal quality. Could it be style over substance? Perhaps, but I think that's just fine when things are this stylish (and odd). Had never heard of this before stumbling across it on Tubi, but I could definitely see myself watching it again in the future.

[BomberPat]

I'm going to fall low of the mark on Project Hail Mary compared to most people, as I'd put it pretty solid 3.5/5.

It took me until after the film finished to realise that I don't know which Ryan is Gosling and which Ryan is Reynolds and, frankly, I'm never going to. I don't really like either of them. 

I think it was a good film that could have been a great film if it weren't for Gosling's performance. He showed that he was really good as a serious actor, but the movie could just not get out of its own way in terms of occasionally having to make it a Ryan Gosling knock-about comedy. It has that thing that too many blockbuster sci-fi flicks have, where the plot requires the central character to be a genius scientist, but the conventions of modern screenwriting and the assumptions of what the audience want expect them to be a lovable goofball, so he's doing pratfalls, quips and dance moves like he's in a Dreamworks animation. I understand that it's a long film with quite bleak implications, so it needs moments of levity, but I felt it missed the mark - or just that modern Hollywood leading man humour isn't to my tastes at all - I'll do some spoilered stuff in a moment about how it could have worked better, in my opinion. 

There's a point early on where I dreaded that it would be much worse than it was, as a character arrives to basically recruit Ryan Gosling's character into the project, and recites some of the clumsiest exposition I've heard in years. She basically explains his character and backstory to him - I think he probably knows all of this already, mate. Luckily the rest of the film largely avoided that level of cliché.

The positives, though - I thought Gosling was very good when allowed to play a serious part, and did a good job of selling the desperation of being stuck in space with no hope and no idea what to do. I just wanted a lot more of that, a bit more Silent Running and a lot less Marvel humour. It was visually stunning, and there were some really interesting creative and design choices made, and as much as I'm down on the tone of the comedy, I think it largely got the balance of light moments to more serious moments right. It felt at times like a '90s blockbuster in how it tried to have a little bit of everything. 

Spoilered stuff:

Spoiler

I was surprised to see that the memory loss stuff was in the book. Hopefully it works better there, because it came across incredibly hokey in the film. I didn't mind that the film was split between the stuff in space and the preceding stuff on Earth leading into the mission, because it was a good way to establish the point of the mission without half the film being an exposition dump, and it meant you had a break from just watching a single actor in space the whole time. But having it explicitly be an amnesia thing, that the character is learning these things at the same time as the audience, felt like a result of bad focus grouping - that test audiences hadn't understood why the flashbacks were happening and they wrote in "oh, he's remembering them" as an explanation. It didn't serve the plot to have him not know what had happened to him, and the movie would have functioned pretty much the same if it was only the audience learning those things to better understand his position instead. That he recovered his memories perfectly linearly and just in time for the right narrative beats is something that would rightly be ridiculed if any other movie attempted it, and it's a testament to this movie being better than the sum of its parts that I do feel like I'm nitpicking on this point.

I really liked Rocky, and Rocky's spaceship especially - just visually staggering, and believably alien in design. Going back to my criticisms of the comedy, I thought there was enough goofy laughs from Rocky that Gosling could have afforded to tone down his comedy bits and allow the alien to be the comic relief more, that way you keep the moments of light, but the central character is less of a putz. 

Way too many fake-outs for one movie. You can probably get away with making you believe that one character has potentially died once. You're pushing it to make the audience believe that both characters have died once. More than that is getting a bit too cute for my liking.

 

[Hannibal Scorch]

On 4/5/2026 at 6:50 PM, DavidB6937 said:

Mario Galaxy

Not as good as the first one. Just didnt flow as well and felt quite shallow. As a hardcore life long Mario fan I still had fun with all the characters and settings and music though. Still missing my favourite character but I'll take Yoshi for now.

The Drama

Pattinson. Zendaya. Obviously both excellent and they have a lot of fun together in this. Funnier than I was expecting. Not as weird as I was expecting. Worth a watch.

 

TSMGM I thought was pretty bad. Not as fun as the first, weirdly paced and just felt dull. We didn’t like it, though my daughter did.

The Drama I thought was overall pretty fun. 

Spoiler

Massive overreaction aside, especially when compared to what the best friend has done.

But thought the film fell apart a bit in the last act. Great turns all round though. Fun Sunday afternoon film.

[SaitoRyo]

Cop

Solid as hell neo-noir with James Woods as a maverick homicide detective who is trying to find a serial killer while dealing with corruption within his department. If you don't like James Woods then don't bother watching this, because it is The James Woods Show. He's in pretty much every scene and is fantastic throughout. It's like a Dirty Harry movie, but less varnished and with James Woods calling people cunts. It's really good, anyway, and sorely overlooked imo. Another gem from the great eighties (fuck you, Tarantino, the decade rocked).

[gmoney]

40 minutes ago, SaitoRyo said:

Cop

Solid as hell neo-noir with James Woods as a maverick homicide detective who is trying to find a serial killer while dealing with corruption within his department. If you don't like James Woods then don't bother watching this, because it is The James Woods Show. He's in pretty much every scene and is fantastic throughout. It's like a Dirty Harry movie, but less varnished and with James Woods calling people cunts. It's really good, anyway, and sorely overlooked imo. Another gem from the great eighties (fuck you, Tarantino, the decade rocked).

Based on quite a shitty James Ellroy novel that was basically an attempt at a Thomas Harris style story. As I remember the movie makes a lot of changes for the better. 

[cobra_gordo]

Thrash. I bloody love a shark film and thoroughly enjoyed this. Everyone raved about Under Paris but I much preferred this, I think the effects are certainly better, bar one dodgy bit of CGI towards the end. A lot of the shark attacks are really well done, very visceral. And there's a single one liner at the end that made me pretty much punch the air. Fully recommend.

[SaitoRyo]

Blind Horizon

Didn't get on with this at all. I thought a political conspiracy thriller set in the west and starring Val Kilmer and Sam Shepard would be pretty good and very much my kind of jam, but it really wasn't. It has that annoying early 2000s look and editing style, which put me off early doors. It was all over the place, to be honest. Would have been much better if it was made fifteen years earlier (and by a director who knew a thing or two).

U-Turn

This was also not exactly amazing, but I liked it enough, even if it's quite an unlikeable film at times.

Sean Penn is the luckless loser and small-time criminal whose car breaks down in the desert, only to then find that everyone in the small town he finds himself in wants to either fuck him or kill him (or both). It's OTT (maybe even ADHD) at times, but there's enough to like here. Crazy ol' Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton, Joaquin Phoenix and Powers Boothe make it fun.

Edited April 13 by SaitoRyo

[gmoney]

Romeo Is Bleeding

Style over substance neo-noir, and I didn't particularly like the style. Great cast, but aside from Lena Olin who's fantastic (worth watching this just for her performance actually) everyone's a bit underused. James Cromwell has about two lines! Also Roy Scheider has such a deep, leathery tan in this he looked like a baseball catchers mitt. 

The Farmer

Enjoyable 70s revenge action film that was apparently lost for years until a surprise bluray release. Starring Gary Conway from Land of the Giants, who looks like Klaus Kinski if he hadn't been haunted. It's about a guy returning from WW2 to save his farm and getting caught up in mob business. Some genuinely shocking violence in this, and a crazy score that makes it worth seeking out I'd say. 

[Lorne Malvo]

Hardly watched anything at all since the end of February - had a nasty case of vertigo which made it seem like I was on a particularly bumpy boatride constantly and made trying to watch anything nigh-on impossible. 

It's finally clearing up so I thought I'd start catching up on some recent stuff I missed. Started with Giant (the Prince Naseem one, not the James Dean one). It's absolutely fine. To it's credit, it's much more about Brendan Ingle than it is about Naseem which makes it more interesting than most boxing biopics. The actual fight scenes are quite boring and poorly done though. Brosnan is good although as always his accent bizarrely wanders. 

Hoping to finally catch No Other Choice soon!

[SuperBacon]

As I'd recommended it to my eldest as part of her "films about graduation" plan with her friends, I just wanted to make sure that it was OK for her (to be honest, that boat has sailed long time ago) and as they all just automatically after, ended up watching the American Pie films (not full attention at all times I must admit and not the spin offs like someone did not long ago, I forget who, sorry!)

American Pie (8)
American Pie 2 (6)
American Pie: The Wedding (4)
American Pie: Reunion (6)

The 4 for the wedding one are all for January Jones. I do bloody love Stifler though, he's such a great nobhead.

Also rewatched The Burbs, which is still 10/10 and Saipan, which was silly, but a lot of fun and the two leads are superb. Your man as Niall Quinn as well, good likeness.

Also, Human Traffic which I bloody love (any jungle in guy?) and noticed something that is probably only relevant to @Chest Rockwell but in the record shop, they have multiple copies of Co Flow Funcrusher Plus, which would be worth a mint these days

[gmoney]

I don't know how many times I've seen Human Traffic. A mate was obsessed with it, and he was the only one of us with his own place at that age so we went round to his all the time. He would either have that on or Baseketball. The later stands up more to repeat viewing. I don't think I could sit through the national anthem bit in HT again, I'd tear flesh cringing. 

[SuperBacon]

42 minutes ago, gmoney said:

I don't think I could sit through the national anthem bit in HT again, I'd tear flesh cringing. 

Me and Punkstep agree

[Chest Rockwell]

1 hour ago, SuperBacon said:

American Pie (8)
American Pie 2 (6)
American Pie: The Wedding (4)
American Pie: Reunion (6)

I haven't seen them in ages but I can't help feeling like you're doing the wedding dirty. It was a bit more slapstick tonally and was basically the Stifler show but Sean Williams Scott is brilliant so that really shouldn't be a negative mark against it. I liked it better than number 2. 

Edited April 13 by Chest Rockwell

[SuperBacon]

2 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I haven't seen them in ages but I can't help feeling like you're doing the wedding dirty. It was a bit more slapstick tonally and was basically the Stifler show but Sean Williams Scott is brilliant so that really shouldn't be a negative mark against it. I liked it better than number 2. 

Ok, 2 marks for Stifler, 2 for January Jones then.

Actually I forgot to mention 

Spoiler

Jim's Dad ending up with Stiflers mum is really sweet in the reunion. Not sure I needed to see him getting blown by her in the cinema and his orgasm face but by the by.

 

[Frankie Crisp]

Thrash was just wonderful fun. As @cobra_gordo mentioned a few posts above, the attacks are very well laid out and nothing is really over the top, when you remember it’s a shark film. There were a couple of genuine laugh out loud moments but due to intentional dialogue rather than silliness. It’s no Deep Blue Sea but there are few modern shark films I enjoyed as much as this. A treat.