My latest Movie Marathon Volume 1: Tape # 121

EXPOSITION: Don’t tell the FBI, but throughout much of the 90’s (and even into the beginning of the current century) an obsessive hobby of mine was to rent stacks of movies from every video stores I could find, and using 2 VCRs and sometimes a descrambler for so called “protected tapes” (snicker) archive them onto 8 hour tapes for my own repeated home viewing enjoyment. I even went so far as to make a Dewy Decimal system card catalogue for this colossal endeavor. Many of these films I taped while sleeping or delivering pizzas at my second job, and to this day I have not actually watched a great number of them. Once again I am attempting to remedy this by going through all the tapes (I have over 300 of them, each of which has 3-5 movies on them) Pictured below are the first 6 of 30 drawers.

I am writing short synopses and reviews of them as I go, and giving each film a 1-10 rating. This project is primarily for my own reference in order to keep track of what I have watched recently but if you’re bored with your dad’s porn collection you are welcome to come along for the ride. Back in the day I would rent movies pretty much at random, sometimes going through sections grabbing tapes off the shelf in alphabetical order no matter what they were about. These movies range from great to awful, and cover virtually every genre of film there is. (In future installments that I will probably never write, I will dispense with all this exposition and dive right into the reviews)

SHORT CUTS (1993)

A bunch of Los Angeles people’s lives are intimately connected in ways they are unaware of.  Almost every American actor working in 1993 is in this movie, unless they were a person of color. (Apparently their services were not required.) Tom Waits and Lily Tomlin are particularly amusing, as is one scene in which Robert Downey Jr. farts. Also of note is Lyle Lovett as a disgruntled pastry chef with some seriously lacking social skills. A good rambling way to waste over 3 hours of your day, but don’t expect a point. (In spite of how it may sound, I actually enjoy this movie)

7/10

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

A creepy dude with a funny voice keeps girls in a well so he can later skin them and make himself a woman suit.  Jodie Foster has an interview with a serial killer. Scott Glenn does his usual impersonation of Scott Glenn. I heard a rumor that Sir Anthony Hopkins is in it too but I couldn’t spot him.

9/10

Mighty Aphrodite (1995)

Woody Allen stalks Mira Sorvino, and ends up paying for her prostitution services though he never actually ends up engaging in sexual intercourse with her. He does all this because he finds out she is the biological mother of the genius son which he and his wife Helena Bonham Carter adopted.  (Which he never reveals to her) I know Woody turned out to be a total piece of shit but you know what, I still like his movies. (Well, most of them, but we’ll get to that.) Also of note is that Sorvino won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in this movie.

7/10

The Wrong Trousers (1993)

Grommet the dog does not trust the new lodger that his owner Wallace lets into their home to help make ends meet. (He does this because he is a terrible inventor, much like the father in Gremlins.)  The lodger in question is a penguin who is certainly up to no good. (I mean just look at the guy!) This is real live action Claymation, folks. They really don’t make them like this any more.

9/10

So all in all, no real stinkers on this first tape I grabbed. I’ve actually gone through several of these tapes in the last couple weeks, so I have some catching up to do.