VHS and Betamax You Have Recently Rented

[Weezenal]

Looks like it's available to pre-order on Zavvi over here - £59.

 

[Devon Malcolm]

Wall Street (Great Movies)

The usual stockbroker / stock market film, except with less cocaine than usual. Charlie Sheen is a Bad Actor, but it probably works well for the story to have Michael Douglas run rings round him. Mediocre.

Apollo 13 (Netflix)

Just watch The Martian.

Amadeus

I'm not big on biopics, as a rule, but this is how they should be done, especially when covering a person like Mozart, about whom you could probably make a 54 hour film if you tried to cover his whole life. The flashback framing from F. Murray Abraham's Salieri is a great idea as well. Music's pretty good, too!

Dodgeball (Film4)

Vince Vaughn is the least likeable comedy movie lead of all time. Stephen Root's live action Bill Dauterive, Rip Torn throwing spanners, and Gary Cole / Jason Bateman's commentary saves it. At least it's better than fucking Zoolander.

Rushmore

Wes Anderson grew into his career beautifully and has definitely got better with age. This has plenty of good moments but also a few too many uncomfortable ones to work as well as a comedy as it should have done.

The Man Who Fell to Earth (Talking Pictures TV)

Over two hours of almost nothing happening except an appearance by Rip Torn and David Bowie's plonkers. Nah, you're alright.

The Dam Busters (Film4)

Typically sturdy, stiff upper lip British war film. Unfortunately, however, I have to announce that all of the Dam Busters will have to be cancelled due to the name of Richard Todd's dog.

Bigger Than Life

James Mason develops a rare condition for which he has to take cortisone, which turns him into a psychotic fascist. Absolutely ludicrous idea but so entertaining and angry at so many things that it's impossible not to enjoy. Possibly Mason's greatest ever performance too - and he gets a cracking fist fight with Walter Matthau!

The Big Country (Prime rental)

Monumental western from William Wyler, one of the greatest directors of all time you might not have heard of. Come for Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston's fist fight, stay for the pro-socialist and anti-Cold War subtext. Magnificent.

Shane (TCM)

The main problem with this is that I ended up sticking up for Jack Palance's Yankee baddie as soon as he dissed Robert E. Lee. Might tell you something about the politics of this one, but it's still a truly great western with one of the best endings the genre's ever seen.

A Streetcar Named Desire

TIL that A Streetcar Named Desire actually has a streetcar named Desire in it. The sweatiest film ever made, Vivien Leigh acting the pants off almost everyone else in history, it's Hollywood melodrama at its most high-pitched and enjoyable.

[Keith Houchen]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Amadeus

I'm not big on biopics, as a rule, but this is how they should be done, especially when covering a person like Mozart, about whom you could probably make a 54 hour film if you tried to cover his whole life. The flashback framing from F. Murray Abraham's Salieri is a great idea as well. Music's pretty good, too!

One of my top five! Was is the directors cut?  

[Hannibal Scorch]

Haven’t seen it in years, but I loved Amadeus. After watching F Murray in Mythic Quest, found the wife has never watched it, so planning to change that soon. Milos Forman also directed another of my favourite biopics in Man on the Moon. He also did The People Vs Larry Flint but I’ve never actually seen it

[Devon Malcolm]

10 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

One of my top five! Was is the directors cut?  

It was! I don't normally choose to watch a longer version of a film but there are special exceptions.

9 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

He also did The People Vs Larry Flint but I’ve never actually seen it

It's also great. He was one of the few directors who knew how to do a good biopic.

[Keith Houchen]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

12 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

 

It was! I don't normally choose to watch a longer version of a film but there are special exceptions.

Yeah, its difficult to think what can be added to a three hour film that could make it even better but it manages it. It’s a crime that F Murray Abraham didn’t have bigger and better roles in his career but he is exceptional in practically everything he appears in. Pretty much single handedly made Homeland watchable again, and he’s fucking brilliant in Star Trek Insurrection. 

[Devon Malcolm]

4 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Yeah, its difficult to think what can be added to a three hour film that could make it even better but it manages it. It’s a crime that F Murray Abraham didn’t have bigger and better roles in his career but he is exceptional in practically everything he appears in. Pretty much single handedly made Homeland watchable again, and he’s fucking brilliant in Star Trek Insurrection. 

He's brilliant in The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Name of the Rose too, both great films.

[Mr_Danger]

Vacation Friends

Feels a bit like someone said “Let’s find the next The Rock and Kevin Hart” then got so excited at finding them they forgot to write them a half decent film. It’s a shame because Lil’ Rel Howery and Cena have great chemistry and Cena is a fine comic actor. I’d watch them in something again, just as long as it’s not this.

[Chest Rockwell]

On 9/4/2021 at 1:24 PM, Devon Malcolm said:

He's brilliant in The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Name of the Rose too, both great films.

You guys seem to be forgetting Last Action Hero, his finest film.

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, Chest Rockwell said:

You guys seem to be forgetting Last Action Hero, his finest film.

Some things go without saying though.

[Chris B]

Candyman

Absolutely loved it. I'm a big fan of the original film, and I was really curious about how they'd make it work now. The answer is by recontextualising a lot of the racist violence inherent in the original story, and making it into something bigger. It's also incredibly information-dense for a fairly short film, but never in a way that feels like it's tripping itself over - Nia DaCosta directs it really well. There's also something fascinating about how gentrification and modernisation is a thing that looms over this film. Incredibly smart film.

Misha and the Wolves

With the caveat of one massive, annoying cheat in the film itself, this is a really interesting story, fairly well-told. It's a difficult one to describe, because there are twists and turns - but the biggest twist is why the documentary is interesting in the first place, and seeing someone talk about it was the entire reason I went to see it. It is, for the first part, a story about a young girl who survived the holocaust by traveling across Belgium forests, being cared for by a pack of wolves that accepted her. It's a Storyville film, so it'll be on iPlayer soon enough.

[BomberPat]

Tombstone

A film that I realised I'd actually never seen, so found the time to watch on Disney+ the other night. I loved it, though I'd struggle to tell you why. It looked great, and Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and Sam Elliott were all superb in it, but the pacing was all over the place, there's a tagged on romantic subplot that adds nothing, and there's a lot of nothing happening, but somehow it was still great. A film just absolutely carried by the performances of the main cast to make it something much better than it deserves.

[Devon Malcolm]

The Night House (cinema)

Walked out after half an hour because a jump scare gave me a panic attack. It was quite good from what I saw though!

Sentinelle (Netflix)

Not as good as Lost Bullet, Netflix's other French actioner, but bearable at only 80 minutes and also because Olga Kurylenko gets a gratuitous lesbian sex scene.

The Darjeeling Company

Done the full set of Wes Anderson now. Really good stuff as usual, interesting to see him working with a smaller cast as well. Not quite top tier Anderson but gave me additional reason to look forward to The French Dispatch, not that I needed it.

Shrek (cinema)

Rather depressingly, a 20th anniversary screening, which means it's 20 years since I first saw it at the cinema and disliked it immensely. Additionally now, it looks like absolute shit too.

Leave Her to Heaven (YouTube)

Splendid noir-ish melodrama spun around themes relating to the Electra complex. Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde are amazing as the leads, and young Vincent Price shows what a superb serious actor he was before becoming a horror specialist.

Extraction (Netflix)

Long overdue rewatch to celebrate the news it's getting a sequel. There's a 20 minute sequence in this (you know the one if you've seen it) that would be acclaimed as one of the best things in action cinema if it wasn't a Netflix film. It's just great.

Continuing my rewatches of Hitchcock films - North by Northwest and Strangers on a Train are still absolute masterpieces and the former still has the greatest one-liner in film history. Dial M for Murder is the perfectly constructed thriller and (mostly) one location film, I Confess is still his most under-appreciated film and is an awesome Catholic guilt noir, and Stage Fright is a bit better than remembered and has one of his best ever endings.

[Mr_Danger]

I started watching Annette.  The presence of Adam Driver could get me to a Tory part conference but this film is not the way I was going to spend my first childless day off in months so I sacked it off after about half an hour. Not sure I’ll go back, as interesting as it looks I’m not sure I have what it takes to watch both a weird art film and a musical. 

[Devon Malcolm]

Kate (Netflix)

Netflix's latest original actioner. More than solid, nothing special but some good fights and shoot-outs. Also, if you ever wondered if a radioactivity poisoned Mary Elizabeth Winstead, resembling a giant blood blister with a fucked eye and hardly any hair, was still good looking - it's an unequivocal yes.