Tuesday 8 September 2009

What's in your DVD rental queue?

Tuesday 8 September 2009

From time to time I like to ask readers: what DVDs/Blu-rays are on your DVD rental queue right now? Netflix, Lovefilm, Blockbuster, Amazon, whichever service you use, what discs are on your list and why? I'll go first:

Gran Torino -- I read excellent reviews and terrible reviews, which is itself very interesting to me. Is this racist baloney or intelligent drama? I guess I'll see for myself.

I Love You, Man -- I've heard this is surprisingly good for a movie with a premise that sounds like typical Adam Sandler-esque pap.

Slumdog Millionaire -- a must-see movie, if only to see what all the fuss was about. Yes, I'm one of the few people who didn't see it in the cinema. It had quite mixed and confused marketing, imo. Feelgood rom-com? Foreign quiz-based drama? I couldn't get a handle on it.

The Boat That Rocked -- I want to see if Richard Curtis is branching out from Hugh Grant-starring rom-coms successfully, or not. This wasn't the huge hit many expected, though, but is it a little gem?

In The Loop -- it kind of passed everyone by at the UK box office, and most of the buzz and acclaim has come from American film festival sources. I haven't seen the TV series it's based on, actually, but love Armando Iannucci's other TV work, so I'm looking forward to ti.

Lesbian Vampire Killers -- it's supposed to be terrible, but how terrible? I must know.

The Thick Of It -- purely to plug an embarassing gap in my comedy knowledge, and I'll hopefully be sent this before In The Loop as a primer. But knowing my luck I'll get the movie spin-off delivered first.

Che: Part 1 & 2 -- I'm not particularly keen to see Steven Soderbergh's epic biopic, as the lengthy running time puts me off, but I'll give it a shot. We'll see how far I get with it.

The Damned United -- I love Michael Sheen but dislike football, so this could go either way. Although I hear it's not really about football, it's a character-based drama.

Dead Snow -- Two words: Nazi zombies.

Dragonball Evolution -- I'm a cinematic sadist, I know. I just find it endlessly fascinating how far James Wong (and by extension Glen Morgan) have fallen since writing for X-Files and Millennium in the '90s. Beyond Final Destination 1 & 3, their movie output has been abysmal. The One? Willard? The Black Christmas remake? Ugh.

Outlander -- an alien teams-up with Vikings to help him recapture a "dragon" he was transporting across the galaxy. I've heard mixed things about this, but it sounds like undemanding fun.