What's in/on Your DVD/VCR/PVR etc

[R6GYY]

Silo season 2 (Apple TV+)
Slow Horses season 1 (Apple TV+)
The Musketeers season 2 (BBC iPlayer)

I can see why people rave about Slow Horses. 5 episodes in now and we are hooked! To be fair, I was hooked during episode 1. It definitely hits the ground running.

After Silo season 2, I'll move swiftly on to Foundation season 2.

[pxr5]

Companion - From the the blurb on IMDb "A weekend getaway with friends at a remote cabin turns into chaos after it's revealed that one of the guests is not what they seem.". A clever movie and has a Black Mirror vibe. I really enjoyed this and the comedy elements made a big difference in what could have been a throw-away flick. 9/10

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26584495/

[Thenop]

Been watching Madam Secretary with Tea Leoni because I felt the need for light entertainment.
Leoni is the foreign Secretary of State for the US. I am now in season 4 where Russia infiltrates the highest ranks of the government.

Somehow that is far from light entertainment,bor comfort for that matter.

[dom]

S3 Ep2 of White Lotus - slowly building - not sure its grabbing me as much as S1 and 2 but there's enough going on to keep me interested

[Fishy]

Paradise ep7 ..best bit of telly I've seen in ages..just great

[Matt2112]

Abigail

If I watch a good horror/cult film late on a Friday night I usually head the post with 'Midnight Movie Club'.

This film from last year - probably made during the Covid pandemic, and it shows - forfeits that honour, because it is simply the worst take on the vampire genre I've ever seen.

There's so many things wrong with this irredeemably tedious and stupid attempt at a slightly tongue-in-cheek horror movie that I don't know where to start.  So I won't.

All I'll say otherwise is that if you want to see a contemporary adolescent-girl-character-goes-very-wrong horror film then I would highly recommend the infinitely superior Megan instead.

Rating: *

[pxr5]

Season 2 of The Mayfair Witches. I can't really recall what happened in the first though.

[Matt2112]

Longlegs

Much-hyped serial-killer horror that's ultimately a let-down; a promising start is undone by a glacial pace and increasingly contrived and bathetic plot points. 

And Nicolas Cage's villain just teeters into the realm of unintentionally funny rather than creepy.

Rating: **

[Fishy]

More White Lotus eps2 and 3

[dom]

A Complete Unknown. Great performances from Timothee Chalamet, Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro

[dom]

Ep 3 of White Lotus. Pressure building but very slowly

[Matt2112]

Midnight Movie Club

Aliens (1990 Special Edition)

Let's get the five minutes of opprobrium I entirely deserve out the way first - I had never seen this film until now.  Yes, yes, I know - and I call myself a cinephile and lover of movies?!  It's unforgivable and I'm sorry.  Okay? Good.

This has aged well on a technical level - the production design is exemplary and looks horribly luscious on the large screen and 4K disc on which I viewed this film.

However, let's face it - it swaps the claustrophobic dread, suspense and shocks of Ridley Scott's classic original for James Cameron's penchant for cack-handed dialogue and frankly by-numbers action scenes - and it's these elements that haven't aged so well.

To its credit, despite the special edition's length (17 minutes longer than the 1986 release at over 150 minutes) the pace rarely flags and it serves as a solidly entertaining example of the sort of gung-ho action movies that were so prevalent in the 80s.

But unfortunately, seeing it for the first time almost 40 years after its release, I just can't buy into the hype.

Rating: ***

[pxr5]

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - Just got round to watching this latest effort in the Mad Max series. It's long at 2hr30 but it whizzes past at an action-packed pace. The main actress must have probably had 2 lines of dialogue (anyone could have done this so why waste the talents - and cash - of Anya Taylor-Joy). This aside it's a tremendous flick - Chris Hemsworth gets all the dialogue and he hams it up to great effect. The actions scenes really are mind-boggling and the stunt men really earned their pay cheques. The story is as weak as always with Mad Max movies but that doesn't matter at all as it's the pace and action that counts here. At the end there is a nod to the Tom Hardy movie which is pretty cool and that movie would follow this one directly. I'm a sucker for these types of films and have to say out of all of them I liked this one the best 9/10

[dom]

Midnight Movie Club

Aliens (1990 Special Edition)

Let's get the five minutes of opprobrium I entirely deserve out the way first - I had never seen this film until now.  Yes, yes, I know - and I call myself a cinephile and lover of movies?!  It's unforgivable and I'm sorry.  Okay? Good.

This has aged well on a technical level - the production design is exemplary and looks horribly luscious on the large screen and 4K disc on which I viewed this film.

However, let's face it - it swaps the claustrophobic dread, suspense and shocks of Ridley Scott's classic original for James Cameron's penchant for cack-handed dialogue and frankly by-numbers action scenes - and it's these elements that haven't aged so well.

To its credit, despite the special edition's length (17 minutes longer than the 1986 release at over 150 minutes) the pace rarely flags and it serves as a solidly entertaining example of the sort of gung-ho action movies that were so prevalent in the 80s.

But unfortunately, seeing it for the first time almost 40 years after its release, I just can't buy into the hype.

Rating: ***

Loved this film. But it always struck mevas a bit ridiculous when the Alien took the lift. You didn't actually see him push the button, but you knew that it had.

[R6GYY]

I kind of agree with some of Matt's sentiments about Aliens.

The original Alien, despite being, what, 46 years old now? stands the test of time. Aliens not so much these days - although it still pisses on 3 and 4 from a great height.

That reminds me, I still need to get the Alien 40th Anniversary 4K Bluray.