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

[dom]

One Battle After Another

What a ride!

Amazing film, fantastic action and excellent acting throughout, Sean Penn in particular

[Fishy]

The Room in the Tower

[Matt2112]

Started the last season of Stranger Things. I caught the first 2 eps last night. Tbh it's all getting a bit dull now.

I don't watch it, but apparently a poster of the Signals album cover can be seen in the background of a scene in Season 5 Ep 6.

[Matt2112]

Paul Foot - Dissolve

I had a ticket for this show but had to miss it, so I took the opportunity to catch the (I assume) slightly truncated version available on Amazon Prime.

The themes are dark, drawing on Foot's real-life experiences of profound depression, and his style is often surrealist, absurdist and meandering, with a sharp intellect that can come across as a curse as much as a blessing. 

It's not for everyone - he's far more Stewart Lee than Lee Mack - and his relentless stream-of-consciousness patter is potentially fatiguing; but stick with it and there are enough laughs to punctuate the adversity, so it's ultimately 70 minutes quite well spent.

Rating: ***

[Fishy]

The Mezzotint

[David L]

Elvis. Enjoyed this. Great casting of Austin Butler for the lead. A good performance from Tom Hanks as 'Colonel Tom Parker' too.

[Matt2112]

West Side Story (2021)

'Tis the season of musicals (and pantomimes, if they count) and as I've been on a roll with the genre recently (the live shows of Matilda, Elf, Beauty & The Beast) it seemed appropriate to add Steven Spielberg's cinematic crack at the genre.

Of course, technically it's very slick and polished indeed, to the extent however that it was often distracting and became a film that I "admired" more than "liked"; Spielberg is a long-established bona fide genius and there are signature touches here of almost permanent lens flare and inventive overhead shots as reminders.

The quality of the performances vary - on the one hand, the film's only Oscar was for Ariana DeBose's supporting role and that seems deserved as she is indeed easily the best actor in the film; Rachel Zegler in her film debut, on the other hand, just doesn't convince at all and has far too much to carry as a co-lead.

It's overlong at 156 minutes too, but there's enough of Spielberg's influence to make this an impressive spectacle at least.

Rating: ***

[pxr5]

Started the last season of Stranger Things. I caught the first 2 eps last night. Tbh it's all getting a bit dull now.

I don't watch it, but apparently a poster of the Signals album cover can be seen in the background of a scene in Season 5 Ep 6.

I watched episode 6 last night but didn't spot it. But captured at RiaB:

Highslide Image Viewer

[Matt2112]

Duel

Steven Spielberg's mainstream feature debut from 1971, originally released as a hugely successful 74-minute TV movie, with an extended 90-minute theatrical  cut following (and currently available on Amazon Prime).

Of course, this has long been cherished as a cult classic and with good reason; a simple concept is transformed into an utterly engrossing suspense thriller, with overtones of psychological horror ramping up the unease.

Dennis Weaver is pretty much perfect in the lead role and the movie is of course a showcase for the then 25-year old Spielberg's prodigious talent.

Terrific.

Rating: ****


(I'm going to see if I can work through SS's filmography chronologically over the course of this year; but that will mean an average of 3 films a month, so we'll see how that goes... ).

[pxr5]

I can't really comment on the film as it would be impossible to do so without spoiling it for anyone to wants to  watch it

Bugonia - I do recommend it though!

We watched it last night. And yes, certainly recommended - what a mad ride it is.

[David L]

The Staight Story (1999). Richard Farnsworth stars in David Lynch's true story of a septegenarian's journey to reconcile with his ill brother......on a lawnmower.
Excellent and moving film that I never knew existed.
That's two crackers so far over the holiday period and one dud. We tried watching Oppenheimer but gave up after failing to comprehend the faint and mumbled dialogue between characters. Might be age but this is becoming more of an issue with modern movies.

[R6GYY]

We tried to watch Dear Santa (Jack Black) but gave up after a while through boredom. This one is aimed more at younger audiences and they may lap it up. Possibly. Meh.

[R6GYY]

On a more positive note, we've caught up with Die Hard 2 and Die Hard With A Vengeance over the past couple of nights (with Olympus Has Fallen thrown in for good measure).

Will probably do Die Hard 4.0 soon, but obviously not the 5th instalment.

[Nick]

One Battle after another - Leo Di Caprio caper, very watchable with a crazy soundtrack.

[Matt2112]

The Staight Story (1999). Richard Farnsworth stars in David Lynch's true story of a septegenarian's journey to reconcile with his ill brother......on a lawnmower.
Excellent and moving film that I never knew existed.

The double-irony here of course is that Lynch is renowned for very much non-straight stories!

Maybe the only other one is The Elephant Man - the rest are varying degrees of glorious batsh!ttery.